The great emission
of sewage sludge (hereafter referred to as sludge)
has become a serious constraint for the sustainable development of
cities. As a solution, mixing sludge into coal water slurry is an
economical and feasible way to recycle sludge. The application of
this method addresses the difficulty of sludge disposal resulting
from high water content and facilitates the effective use of the energy
contained in sludge. In the present study, a low-temperature thermal-alkaline
(LTTA) method was employed to pretreat sludge. The macromolecular
organic substances in the sludge flocs were degraded, and the shearing
resistance of the sludge was weakened, thereby improving the co-slurrying
ability of the sludge and coal. The sludge showed significant degradation
within 1 h of the LTTA treatment. The degradation degree of chemical
oxygen demand reached 7.87%, 10.92%, and 49.29% under neutral, Ca(OH)2, and NaOH conditions at 90 °C, respectively. Compared
with the original sludge that featured a shearing energy consumption
per unit volume (W
V
)
of 35.40 × 104 J/m3, the treated sludge
exhibited a decreased W
V
, which reached 7.19 × 104 and 3.68 × 104 J/m3 after treatment in 90 °C Ca(OH)2 and 90 °C NaOH for 1 h, respectively. Consequently,
slurry viscosity decreased to 974.9 and 712.5 mPa·s when the
sludge was mixed with coal to prepare the coal sludge slurry (CSS).
By contrast, the slurry viscosity of CSS made of the original sludge
was 1663.6 mPa·s. A low slurry viscosity is conducive to application
processes for CSS, including mixing, transportation, and atomization.
The LTTA method can be developed using industrial waste heat and low-cost
alkali reagents; therefore, its operating cost is low.