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Lecture 28

The document discusses different sources and types of sludge and biosolids in a wastewater treatment plant. It describes various sludge treatment processes including primary operations, thickening, stabilization through methods like alkaline stabilization and anaerobic digestion, and dewatering. The key aspects of designing an anaerobic digester for sludge treatment are also outlined.

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Tejas Mhaiskar
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29 views

Lecture 28

The document discusses different sources and types of sludge and biosolids in a wastewater treatment plant. It describes various sludge treatment processes including primary operations, thickening, stabilization through methods like alkaline stabilization and anaerobic digestion, and dewatering. The key aspects of designing an anaerobic digester for sludge treatment are also outlined.

Uploaded by

Tejas Mhaiskar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lecture: 28

Wastewater and Sludge Management Systems

1
Sludge treatment
Sludge which is having beneficial use is called biosolids

Different sources of biosolids in a wastewater treatment plant are


Screening - coarse solids
Grit chamber – grit and scum
Pre-aeration – grit and scum
Primary sedimentation - settleable organic solids, primary solids, and scum
Biological treatment - suspended solids
Secondary Sedimentation Tank (SST) - secondary biosolids and scum - completely
active MO
Solids processing facilities – solids, compost and others
Picture credits: Google images
Sludge from chemical precipitation - dark color, degradation at a low rate
The specific gravity of the sludge from primary sedimentation tank (PST) is 1.02 but
solids have the same gravity of 1.2 – 1.4, because sludge contains more water 95 –
96% and only 1% solid so overall average sludge specific gravity is 1.2
In any case, the sludge percentage is 5% and remaining is water

It is essential to find out what is the mass of fixed solids, volatile solids, and
inorganic solids for the volume-mass relationship
Sludge from ASP contains fixed solids, organic, and inorganic solids. So we cannot
remove inorganic solids, but organic solids can be removed, hence we should find
out the volume based on the percentage of these substances
Solids processing
Primary operators – grinders, degrading, blending storage - to get uniform
characteristics solids
Thickeners - to reduce volume, co-setting, gravity belt press, centrifuge

Stabilization- to remove pathogens, destruction of organic matter, and foul odour control

Conditioning- thermal or chemical means

Dewatering

Heat drying and other processes

Thermal reduction
Stabilization
The solids and biosolids are stabilized to reduce

1. Pathogen
2. Eliminate offensive orders
3. Inhibit, reduce, or eliminate the potential for putrification - to reduce bad odours
4. To inhibit microbial growth and stabilize the sludge 

Different methods of stabilization


1. Alkaline stabilization
2. Anaerobic digestion Most important is the anaerobic digestion wastewater
3. Aerobic digestion treatment plant
4. Auto thermophilic digestion
5. Composting
1. Alkaline stabilization
 Here we are adding alkaline chemicals such as alum and FeCl2 to stabilize the sludge. Because
of high alkaline conditions, it creates an environment that microbes cannot sustain. This is
similar to various disinfection processes such as creating highly alkaline, or acidic conditions
to kill bacteria. Here pH increases -10, so microorganisms cannot survive so this will not be
any putrification
 The substances present in sludge like fats, organic matter, calcium bicarbonates, phosphates,
carbon dioxide etc. react with calcium oxide or the which we are adding pH increase 10 so no
problem
 It can be pre-alkaline or post alkaline
 pH increases above 10, so microorganisms cannot survive at high temperature
 Lime is added – phosphate, carbon dioxide, organic matter etc. react with lime and form other
components and reduce the strength of wastewater
 Materials like kiln dust, lime kiln dust, or fly ash are used
 This will react with sludge and get stabilized sludge
2. Anaerobic digestion
 Oldest method
 Conventional anaerobic digestion - no mixing or sliding. Mixing takes place
because of gas formation
 Single stage high-rate digester
 Two-stage digester – heating, auxiliary mixing, uniform feeding thickening of the
feed system

Two-stage digester
 First stage tank is for digestion and is heated and mixing
 Second tank is usually unheated and used as a storage facility - not commonly
used
Design of an anaerobic digester
The volume of sludge should be known mainly from Primary sedimentation
(suspended solids) tank (PST) and secondary sedimentation tank (SST) (bio solids)
a) Mass of the sludge and volume is calculated from mass, usually, it is designed for 50
to 60% of the destruction of volatile material
b) HRT required to achieve the desired efficiency (40 days)
c) Quantity of volatile material in the total sludge
d) Find out the quantity of inorganic matter in digested sludge
e) Total quantity of solids
f) Percentage of volatile material in the sludge
(g) Percentage of Food Microorganisms (FM) in sludge
(h) Consistency of digested sludge (4 to 6%) (depends on withdrawal frequency)
(i) Volume of sludge
(j) Volume of digester
Solids loading rate 0.62-1.6 kg VSS/day/m3

Provide space for gas storage and extra sludge during monsoon - because during
monsoon we cannot extract the sludge frequently
Gas produced = 0.9 m3/kg of volatile matter (VM) destroyed

Area required 9 m3 of gas/d/m2 to avoid foaming

Based on all these the depth of the anaerobic digester is designed


3. Aerobic digestion
Used for the treatment of sludge from
 Waste-activated sludge

Mixture of waste-activated sludge and trickling filter sludge

Waste sludge from the extended aeration system

The sludge which contains organic matter (OM), so provides micro-organisms


(MO) and sufficient oxygen. Then MO utilizes organic matter and oxidized it to
carbon dioxide and water
In this process they will get energy and more and more new cells are formed
• In extended aeration (EAs), we are aerating it for a long time (16 to 20 hours) or the food
supply is limited
• In this case, in the initial use more and more organic matter is getting converted to biomass
but once the food is limited, the biomass thus generated will be getting auto oxidized and it will
be converted to carbon dioxide and water, for the maintenance of the remaining cells
• Towards the end, all the biomass present in the system is exhausted or destructed. So the same
principle is used in aerobic digestion
• Aerobic process is more efficient - more microorganisms will present in the system and more
energies are liberated in the aerobic process. So the material required for catabolism is less
compared to the anaerobic process but the disadvantages are high power cost and less
dewatering capacity

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