J Mater Cycles Waste Manag (2011) 13:259263 DOI 10.

1007/s10163-011-0023-z

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The effect of the addition of y ash to municipal digested sludge on its electroosmotic dewatering
Jung-Eun Lee

Received: 26 February 2010 / Accepted: 10 June 2011 / Published online: 9 July 2011 Springer 2011

Abstract Effective handling of municipal digested sludge requires that the product cake have low water content. To this end, we investigated the change in sludge dewaterability after the addition of y ash to municipal digested sludge, dewatering of which is difcult because of its high organic content. The performance of the dewatering is compared with that of electroosmotic dewatering (EDW) and conventional mechanical dewatering (CMD). Fly ash classied by sieving to the size of 2575 lm and [75 lm is added to the municipal digested sludge by 10, 20, and 50 wt% by wet base. When adding y ash particles to municipal digested sludge, dewatering efciency improved with smaller y ash particle size and with increase in the amount. When sludge was dewatered using an electroosmotic dewatering method, the dewatering efciency is improved about 40% by adding y ash of 2575 lm particle size with 20 wt% when compared with conventional mechanical dewatering method without adding the y ash. It is concluded that y ash particles rich in inorganic material are helpful in the dewatering process when added to municipal digested sludge and EDW is more effective than CDW. Keywords Dewaterability Electroosmotic dewatering (EDW) Conventional mechanical dewatering (CMD) Fly ash Municipal digested sludge

Introduction The expansion of sewage facilities in recent years has led to an increase in the amount of municipal digested sludge generated. This trend has caused environmental problems and an increase in the cost associated with the treatment and disposal of sewage. Therefore, there is a pressing need to decrease the water content of municipal digested sludge. As the water content of the dewatered cake is decreased, the disposal costs for incineration or landll also decrease. Researchers have studied various methods for reducing the water content of sludge. Several studies have been carried out to analyze the availability of high efciency dewatering equipment and the changes in sludge properties after the addition of ltration aids. Previous studies concentrated on developing new techniques such as electroosmotic dewatering (EDW), thermal dewatering, and microwave dewatering [13]. EDW, which is based on electroosmosis and electrophoresis of the cake layer, has been studied since the 1980s and used in countries such as Canada, Australia, and South Africa in mining and wet-cleaning processes to obtain cake with low water content. Since then, this technique has been studied extensively by many researchers. Yoshida, Lee, Braton, and Weber have contributed to the improvement of EDW by publishing numerous research papers on the subject [47]. In 1979, Nelson [8] studied the effectiveness of adding y ash to digested municipal sludge dewatered using a lter press. In his study, he evaluated the dewatering efciency when y ash particles were added as a ltration aid and determined the efciency of disposal of the resulting sludge. Most of the previous research in this area has been devoted to the improvement of EDW or to the analysis of the advantages of adding ltration aids. However, there have been no attempts to add ltration aids to sludge

J.-E. Lee (&) PEET, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, Korea e-mail: jelee@pusan.ac.kr

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subjected to EDW. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the improvement of the dewatering efciency by conducting EDW after altering the sludge characteristics. The factors inuencing the separation of the particles and the liquid phase are the inorganic and organic components of the sludge. It is difcult to separate the liquid from the particles when the organic content is high, and hence, the dewatering efciency would increase if the organic content is low. Therefore, the inorganic content of the sludge should be increased for the dewatering efciency to be improved [9, 10]. Hence, in this research, we increase the inorganic content of the sludge by adding y ash with an inorganic content of 95%. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the dewatering efciency whilst applying an electric eld to the sludge bed after adding the ltration aid (y ash) to municipal digested sludge.

Air Regulator Pressure Gauge Valve Compressed Air Supply

Upper Plate Power Supply Upper Electrode (+) Filter Cloth Lower Electrode (-) Perforated Plate Filtration Sludge

Data Acquisition System

Balance

Materials and methods Experimental apparatus The bench-scale piston lter press used in this study is shown in Fig. 1, and the experimental conditions are described in Table 1. A suspension of the sludge and y ash is held in a vertical Teon cylinder with 7 cm of inner diameter and 50 cm of length having anges at each end. The lower part of the cylinder is composed of a perforated plate, a lower electrode, and lter cloth. The perforated plate has 90 holes of diameter 3 mm. A lter sheet made of nylon with 5 lm pores is placed on top of the perforated plate. The lower electrode is a circular piece of titanium mesh, which is coated with platinum in order to prevent electrode corrosion. The upper electrode, which is made of an alloy of platinum and titanium, is placed at the top of the test cylinder and can be freely moved in the downward direction during the dewatering process. The initial height of the sludge in the cylinder is maintained at about 45 mm, and the thickness of the wet cake is 20 mm after a dewatering test. A constant DC voltage is supplied to the electrodes by a regulated power supply (model KSCN300L5CD, Korea Switching Inc.). When a DC voltage is applied, the water in the sludge bed moves downwards by electroosmotic ow, according to the polarity of the charged particles. If the sludge is negatively charged, water is removed electroosmotically. The removed water passes through the lower electrode into a vessel and is measured by a balance (model GT410, OHAUS). The ltration weight is recorded by a personal computer. In the above experiment, conventional mechanical dewatering (CMD) is carried out under a pressure of 4 kgf/cm2 and EDW is carried out under a pressure of 4 kgf/cm2 and a DC electric eld of 40 V/cm.

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of experimental apparatus for CMD and EDW test

Table 1 Experimental conditions of dewatering test apparatus Experimental conditions Design conditions Material of cylinder ID of cylinder (cm) Height of cylinder (cm) Perforated plate Filter sheet Electrode Operating conditions DC electric eld Pressure (kgf/cm2) Dewatering time (min) Addition amount of y ash by wet base (wt%) 40 V/cm 4 20 10, 20, 50 Teon 50 7 90 hole with holes of 3 mm in diameter Nylon with pore size of 5 lm Titanium mesh coated with platinum Specication

Sludge sampling and conditioning The effect of adding y ash to sludge as well as the electroosmotic effect on the water content of municipal digested sludge is investigated. Fly ash collected from the precipitator of a coal-red power plant in Korea is used for the additive matter because it is rich in inorganic material, which improves the dewaterability of sludge. The y ash is mainly composed of SiO2 and Al2O3, as shown in Table 1, and is sieved to give samples with particle sizes of 2575 lm and [75 lm. Fly ash samples prepared by mixing y ash and water (wet base) are added to the

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J Mater Cycles Waste Manag (2011) 13:259263 Table 2 Material properties of municipal sludge, industrial sludge and y ash

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Materials

SiO2/ Al2O3

Inorganic content (wt%) 54 90.2 95

Particle size(lm) Range 0.1100 0.130 0.1100 MMD 29.5 10.5 17.8

Initial water content (wt%) 97 95 80

Municipal digested sludge Industrial sludge from copper rening process MMD mass median diameter Fly ash

2.21 None 3.70

municipal digested sludge in quantities of 10, 20, and 50 wt%, as shown in Table 1. Municipal digested sludge with a high organic content is collected from a wastewater treatment plant in Korea, and industrial sludge with a high inorganic content is obtained from a copper company. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the improvement in the dewatering of municipal digested sludge when an electric eld is applied and y ash is added. The properties of the sludge are analyzed in terms of the concentrations and particle size distributions of the organic components. The organic contents are evaluated using the electric burning method (a standard test method for the processing of waste material in Korea), which involves measuring the weight difference before and after burning the samples at 550C for 6 h. The particle sizes of the y ash and sludge are measured by a Mastersizer (MAH 5001, Malvern) to identify the size distributions and mass median diameters (MMD).

Fig. 2 Comparison of the particle size with municipal digested sludge and the y ash

Results and discussion Properties of municipal digested sludge and y ash Table 2 shows the properties of the municipal digested sludge and ash particles, such as SiO2 to Al2O3 (SiO2:Al2O3) ratio, organic content, particle size, and initial water content. Municipal digested sludge is difcult to dewater because the SiO2 to Al2O3 ratio is low and the organic content is high, making removal of the residual liquid from the sludge difcult [5]. On the other hand, y ash is easy to dewater because its SiO2 to Al2O3 ratio is high and it has a low organic content. Needless to say, this makes water removal easy, and therefore, the addition of y ash may help improve the dewatering efciency of municipal digested sludge. Figure 2 shows the size distributions of the particles of municipal digested sludge and ash. The sludge particles are non-spherical and sticky because of their high organic content, causing the particles to aggregate easily. On the other hand, the ash particles are spherical, and pores were easily formed between them. The average particle size of the municipal digested sludge was 29.5 lm and that of the

y ash is 17.8 lm. The size of the y ash particles is a decisive factor inuencing the improvement of the sludge dewatering process. Therefore, we conducted an experiment to estimate the dewatering ability as size of y ash particle added to the sludge. For this experiment, the y ash is sieved to separate it into samples with particle sizes larger and smaller than 75 lm. Comparison of sludge dewatering by EDW and CMD Figure 3 shows the results of the CMD and EDW processes for municipal digested sludge and industrial sludge without the addition of y ash. CMD is conducted by applying a squeezing pressure of 4 kgf/cm2, while EDW is conducted under an electrical force of 40 V/m and a squeezing pressure of 4 kgf/cm2. In addition, the sludge is conditioned with an anionic polymer of 200 ppm. The dewaterability of municipal digested sludge is poor when using CMD but improved when using EDW. When CMD alone is used, the water content of the sludge decreased slowly over time: the water content of the cake is about 85 wt% after 20 min. On the other hand, the water content of the cake produced by EDW is 64 wt% after 20 min, showing that the water content decreased very rapidly. The results indicate that by combining EDW with pressure application, the dewatering rate can be made better than that in the pressure-only

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Fig. 3 Comparison of dewaterability for municipal digested sludge and industrial sludge by CMD and EDW

Fig. 4 Dewatering efciency as adding y ash to the municipal digested sludge by CMD

method. Such results have been demonstrated on several occasions [6, 1113]. Both EDW and CMD are used for the sludge obtained from copper rening processing plants. Dewatered cake with a water content of 63 wt% is produced by CMD, and cake with a water content of 45 wt% is obtained by EDW. Accordingly, it is found that the dewatering rate of industrial sludge is better than that of municipal digested sludge. This is because the inorganic content of industrial sludge (90.2 wt%) is higher than that of municipal digested sludge (54 wt%), as shown in Table 2. It is seen from Fig. 3 and Table 2 that the dewatering rate increases as the inorganic content increases. Water is well separated from the sludge when mechanical or electrical forces act on the inorganic matter in the sludge, because the ionic forces between the particle surfaces of inorganic matter and water are smaller than those between the particle surfaces of organic matter. Therefore, it is found that the dewatering rate can be improved for sludge with high inorganic content when using the EDW method. Dewaterability of sludge with y ash using the CMD method As described previously, a high inorganic content could help improve the dewatering efciency. The inorganic content of y ash is 95 wt%, which is much higher than that of municipal digested sludge (54 wt%), as shown in Table 2. This implies that if y ash is used as a dewatering aid for the treatment of municipal digested sludge by CMD or EDW, the dewatering efciency may be improved. Figure 4 presents the water contents of municipal digested sludge dewatered using the CMD equipment after the addition of y ash with different particle sizes. It is clearly seen that the dewatering rate increases when y ash with a

particle size of 2575 lm is added. When the sludge is dewatered by using the CMD method without the addition of y ash, cake with a water content of 88 wt% is produced after 20 min. However, when municipal digested sludge mixed with y ash is dewatered, the water content of the cake decreases rapidly. CMD is carried out as adding each classied y ash with a ratio of 20 and 50 wt% by wet base, after classifying y ash into above and below 75 lm. Water content decreases slowly compared to the sludge with y ash of 2575 lm when y ash with above 75 lm is added into sludge, and the nal water content of the cakes is 78 and 65 wt% with the addition of y ash of 20 and 50 wt% by wet base, respectively. For CMD, y ash with a particle size of 2575 lm is more effective than that with a particle size of [75 lm. This is because of the difference in distribution area at the sludge layer: the number of y ash particles with sizes greater than 75 lm is smaller than the number of particles with a size of 2575 lm when the same weight percentage of y ash is added to the sludge. This implies that the dewatering efciency of the sludge containing large y ash particles is poorer than that of the sludge containing small y ash particles, because the area over which the y ash is distributed is smaller for coarse particles than for ne particles. The results shown in Fig. 4 suggest that the dewatering rate of municipal digested sludge can be improved by adding ne y ash and that the larger the amount of y ash added, the greater the improvement in the dewatering efciency. However, it is not reasonable to add more than 50 wt% of y ash because of the increase of sludge disposal cost with excess addition of y ash. Sludge disposal cost would rise up as mixed y ash increased, on the other hand would be dropped by the increase of dewatered water. So it is important to determine proper y ash addition amount. When considering the y ash addition amount and extracted water, I think that it is

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Fig. 5 Dewatering efciency as adding y ash to the municipal digested sludge by EDW

appropriate economically to add 20 wt% of y ash with a particle size 2575 lm to municipal digested sludge. Dewaterability of sludge with y ash using EDW As seen in Fig. 4, the dewatering efciency of municipal digested sludge is improved considerably after adding y ash. Figure 5 shows the improvement in the dewatering rate of municipal digested sludge achieved when employing EDW after the addition of y ash. When 10 wt% (by wet base) y ash with a particle size of 2575 lm is added to the sludge, the water content drops to 65 wt% after 20 min, and when 20 wt% y ash is added, the water content decreases to 57 wt%. As the amount of y ash is increased, the water content of the cake obtained decreases because of an increase in the inorganic content of the municipal digested sludge. These trends are similar to those found for the CMD method. However, the results show that EDW is more effective than CMD when considering the higher rate of water loss. From these results, it can be concluded that the addition of y ash particles, which are rich in inorganic material, to municipal digested sludge is helpful for dewatering by CMD or EDW and that the latter method is more effective.

is used. The dewatering efciency of municipal digested sludge is improved when y ash with a small particle size is added, and this efciency increases with the amount of y ash. However, when more than 50 wt% y ash (by wet base) is added, the efciency decreases because of the lower relative amount of sludge. The dewatering efciency of electroosmotic dewatering method on municipal digested sludge mixed 20 wt% of y ash by wet base is improved by about 10% against conventional mechanical dewatering with adding y ash, about 12% against electroosmotic dewatering without adding the y ash, and about 40% with conventional mechanical dewatering without adding the y ash. Therefore, the optimum dewatering efciency is achieved when 20 wt% of y ash with a particle size of 2575 lm is added to municipal digested sludge and the resulting mixture is dewatered by EDW. Moreover, there is the possibility that heavy metal can be discharged from y ash and contaminate the cake, but it was not handled in this study. It will be necessary to conduct detailed research on this aspect in the future.

References
1. Peuker UA, Stahl W (2001) Steam pressure ltration: mechanicalthermal dewatering process. Dry Technol 19:807848 2. Lee JE (2006) Thermal dewatering (TDW) to reduce the water content of sludge. Dry Technol 24:225232 3. Miller SA, Murphy A, Veal CJ, Young M (1998) Development of electrodewatering. KoreaAustralia Joint Symposium on Innovative Water and Waste Water Treatment 3:7177 4. Yoshida H (1993) Practical aspects of dewatering enhanced by electro-osmosis. Dry Technol 11:787814 5. Lee JE, Lee JK, Choi HK (2007) Filter press for electrodewatering of waterworks sludge. Dry Technol 25:16491657 6. Braton WA, Miller SA, Veal CJ (1999) The electrodewatering of sewage sludges. Dry Technol 17:497522 7. Weber K, Stahl W (2002) Improvement of ltration kinetics by pressure electroltration. Sep Purif Technol 26:6980 8. Nelson RF, Brattlof BD (1979) Sludge pressure ltration with y ash addition. J Water Pollut Control Fed 51:10241031 9. Banerjee S, Law SE (1998) Electroosmotically enhanced drying of biomass. IEEE Trans Ind Appl 34:992999 10. Lee JE, Kim DS (2003) Study on dewatering of wastewater sludge mixed with coal y ash. KSEE Conf 5:262267 11. Kondoh S, Hiraoka M (1990) Commercialization of pressurized electroosmotic dehydrator (PED). Water Sci Technol 22:259268 12. Gopalakrishnan S, Mujumdar AS, Weber ME, Pirkonen PM (1996) Electrokinetically enhanced vacuum dewatering of mineral slurries. Filtr Sep 33:929932 13. Iwata M, Igami H, Murase T, Yoshida H (1991) Combined operation of electroosmotic dewatering and mechanical expression. J Chem Eng Jpn 24:399401

Conclusion On the basis of a review of the analysis of the dewatering properties of several types of sludge after the addition of inorganic or organic matter and the use of CMD and EDW, it is concluded that the dewatering efciency is increased when the inorganic content of the sludge is high and EDW

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