Microwave thermal pretreatment of sewage sludge

WANG Wei, QIAO Wei, YIN Keqing, XUN Rui

Department of environmental science and engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084,
Beijing, CHINA, qw04@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
Abstract
Water could absorb microwave and increase temperature rapidly within short time. Municipal
wastewater treatment plant sewage sludge was used to be heated by microwave digestion reactor.
Sludge total solid content (TS) was 2%, 4% and 5%. Microwave heating temperature was 150,
170 and 190, reaction time was 5 minutes. Results show that temperature rising trend from
ambient to three specified temperature was similar. Colloid structure was destroyed to release soluble
organic components. Dewaterability and settling performance were improved. TS and suspended solid
content (SS) reduced. High temperature resulted high SS dissolving ratio. For TS 2% sludge, at 190
40.0% of SS dissolved.

Keywords: microwave, thermal pretreatment, sewage sludge

INTRODUCTION
Municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants produce large amounts of
sewage sludge, containing organic and mineral components. The disposal of sewage
sludge produced by urban and industrial wastewater treatment plants is a matter of
great concern. It is well known that sewage sludge is very difficult to dewater. Both
the reduction of the amount of sludge and improving its dewaterability are of
paramount importance. It has been known that thermal pre-treatment gives an
improvement in the dewaterability of sludge. Experiments with municipal sewage
sludge show that the highest yield of hydrolysis can be achieved at 165-180. The
dissolved components are readily degradable in a digestion process. In addition the
dewaterability is increased. Thermal pre-treatment prior to anaerobic digestion may
result in net energy production from the system because of increased biodegradability
and reduced digester heating requirements [1,2].
Conventional thermal energy source was electronic power. The heating time was
comparatively long. The new and energy-efficient source was more important to
improve thermal pretreatment economic advantages. It was realized that microwaves
had the potential to provide rapid, energy-efficient heating of certain materials. The
main applications of microwave heating today include food processing, wood drying,
plastic and rubber treating as well as curing and preheating of ceramics. Water could
absorb microwave energy efficiently. More than 90.0% (weight) of the sludge was
water, so the microwave was a potential effective sludge thermal pretreatment energy
source [3].

Materials and Method

Experiment reactor was MSD-6 microwave oven made by Shanghai sineo microwave
chemical technology co., Ltd. The oven could operate below 200 temperature. The
microwave reactor could provide sample digestion and extraction operation mode.
System temperature was controlled and recorded by the reactor automatically. Our
experiment choose sample extraction mode to heat sludge. 30mL sludge was put into
70 mL sample tube which was made of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The sludge
heating temperature was 150, 170 and 190. At the pre-setted temperature
sludge was heated 5 minutes. Sludge was colleted from an urban wastes water
treatment plant. Colleted sludge was kept in a refrigerator at -4 before using. The
original sludge contains about 5.0% TS (total solid). In order to review the effect of
organic flocculant to the sludge dewaterability after microwave heating,
polyacrylamide (PAM) was added into the sludge. Sludge containing 0.3% and 0.9%
PAM (dry weight) was made by to adding 1.0g/L PAM. TS was measured by drying
sludge at 105 for 24 ours. For SS analysis, before the same drying operation sludge
was separated off the soluble solid by centrifuge at 3000r/min for 10 minutes. Sludge
sedimentation property was measured by recording the dropping sludge solid interface
at a glass column within 8 hours [4].
Results and Discussion
Contrast with general electronic heating facilities, microwave oven use entirely
different heating mechanism. Microwave could achieve shorter heating time, so the
utilization efficiency of electronic energy was high. Sludge was heated at 150, 170
and 190 respectively. The temperature of sludge heating process was recorded.
Figure 1 showed the increase of sludge temperature.
200

teperature()

180
160
140
120
100

150
170
190

80
60
40
20
0
0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5 4.5
time(min)

5.5

6.5

Figure 1 Increase of the sludge temperature

From figure 1 we may see that three temperature increasing trend was similar. Sludge
could increase to 150 within 5.0 minutes. For 170 and 190 the last time was
6.5 minutes and 7.0 minutes. The whole process could be divided into two stages.
Before 2.0 minutes the sludge temperature increase rapidly and the temperature reach
2

about 100. After this stage the increase of the temperature showed a mild trend.
untreated sludge
150
170
190

untreated sludge

100
90
80

100

70

relative heigh

relative height

120

150
170
190

60
50
40
30
20

80
60
40
20

10

0
0

10 20 30 40 50 75 135 175 265 325

10 20 30 40 50 80 120 160 200 300 360

time(min)

time(min)

Figure 2 Sedimentation curve for TS 2% sludge

Figure 3 Sedimentation curve for TS 4% sludge

untreated sludge
150
170
190

120

100
90

100
80

relative height

relative heigh

untreated sludge
0.3%PAM150
0.3%PAM170
0.3%PAM190

60
40
20

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

0
0

10 20 30 40 50 80 120 160 200 300 360

time(min)

Figure 4 Sedimentation curve for TS 5% sludge

10

20

30 55 125 185 280 460

time(min)

Figure 5 Sedimentation curve for TS 4%

sludge(0.3% PAM)

The effect of the microwave heating of sludge could be showed in the sedimentation
curve directly from figure 2 to figure 5. For sedimentation test, the experiment sludge
was TS 2%, TS 4% and TS 5%. Sludge (TS 4%) was added PAM. The mixture
contains 0.3% PAM (dry weight). Figure 2 show that for TS 2% sludge, the heated
sludge present obvious superiority to untreated sludge for settling property. From
figure 2 to figure 3, the TS content of the sludge increased. The difference of the
sedimentation characteristic between untreated sludge and treated sludge diminished.
Differently, at 190 the heated sludge showed distinct advantage compared with
150 and 170. PAM could increase the treated sludge sedimentation performance
shown in figure 5. When adding 0.3% PAM compared with the sludge with no PAM,
at 170 sludge could settle rapidly.
In microwave heating process, sludge solid structure was destroyed and organic
components dissolve into soluble parts. So the solid content of the sludge decreased
and the amount of sludge reduced. Part of solid components decomposed at high
temperature and certain pressure condition. TS and SS were measured to present the
volume reduction of sludge.

60

30

TS
SS

TS
SS

55
solid content(g/L)

solid content(g/L)

25
20
15
10
5

50
45
40
35
30
25
20

0
untreated
sludge

150

170

untreated
sludge

190

temperature/

40

35

35
solid content(mg/L)

solid content(g/L)

45

40

TS
SS

20

190

Figure 7 TS/SS reduction for TS 5% sludge

45

25

170

temperature/

Figure 6 TS/SS reduction for TS 2% sludge

30

150

15

TS
SS

30
25
20
15

10

10

5
0

0
untreated
sludge

150

170

untreated
sludge

190

temperature/

Figure 8 TS/SS reduction for TS 4%

Sludge (0.3% PAM)

150

170

190

temperature/

Figure 9 TS/SS reduction for TS 4%

sludge (0.9% PAM)

Sludge solid content reduction was presented from figure 6 to figure 9. TS and SS
content decreased after the microwave heating at different microwave thermal
temperature and for different feed sludge. Contrasted with TS 5% sludge, TS 2%
sludge present more obvious TS and SS decompose trend. High microwave
temperature would bring high TS and SS dissolving ratio. Figure 7 show that 190
was more effective for TS and SS dissolving.
Compared with TS, SS more usually was used to analysis the effect of sludge
reduction. Both in water oxidation (WO) and in microwave heating process the object
was to reduce the amount of the sludge amount and improve sludge dewaterability. In
microwave process, 5 minuets were enough to achieve high SS dissolving ratio. With
the system temperature increasing, SS reduction effect was obvious better. The less
sludge TS content leads to higher SS dissolving ratio. For 2% TS sludge, at 190 SS
dissolving ratio was 40%. For 5% TS sludge, at 190 SS could dissolve 13%. PAM
was effective to improve SS reduction. When adding 0.9% PAM to TS 4% sludge,
34.7% of SS dissolve.

CONCLUSION
Microwave thermal pretreatment could improve sludge dewaterability and reduce
sludge SS content. 5 minutes microwave heating could achieve considerable SS
dissolving ratio. Temperature was the most important factor that affects sludge
dewaterability. 190 was better than 150 and 170. For TS 2% sludge, 40% SS
dissolve ratio could be achieved. Adding PAM could improve SS reduction and
dewaterability.
ACKNOWLEDGEMNET
The work was supported by Ministry of Education of China and National Nature
Science Foundation of China.
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