Coagulation or flocculation
is often individually used or in hybrid
conditioning with other preconditioning for sludge dewatering. However,
combined conditioning with coagulants and flocculants for sludge dewatering
is rarely reported. In this study, dewatering performances of sludge
with individual use of poly(aluminum chloride) (PACl; as the coagulant)
and a biopolymer named “BF-ADSW” (as the flocculant)
were investigated, and the feasibility of applying the coagulation–flocculation
process using PACl and BF-ADSW for sludge dewatering and the related
mechanism were explored. BF-ADSW was harvested from anaerobically
digested swine wastewater (ADSW), and its yield was 2.98 g/L, meaning
that 2.98 g of BF-ADSW can be harvested from 1 L of ADSW. After conditioning
by PACl with a dose of 10% dry solids (DS), the sludge moisture content
and settled volume after 30 min were decreased from the raw values
of 98.5% and 96.1% to 80.8% and 74.2%, respectively, which were further
decreased to 62.3% and 49.2% after further conditioning by 15% DS
of BF-ADSW, respectively, indicating that sludge dewaterability and
settleability can be obviously improved by PACl coagulation followed
by BF-ADSW flocculation. Compared to sludge conditioning by individual
PACl and BF-ADSW, reduction of bound water in the coagulation–flocculation
process was the most efficient (2.24 g/g of DS), and release of sludge
extracellular polymeric substances was the largest (32.2 mg/g of volatile
suspended solids), resulting in the best dewatering performance. The
synergistic effect of coagulation and flocculation, including charge
neutralization and bridge aggregation, was the main mechanism that
efficiently enhanced sludge dewatering. These findings demonstrated
that coagulation–flocculation is a feasible process to improve
sludge dewatering.