Sludge Minimization Technologies- Doing more to get Less

Roxburgh, Ruth; Sieger, Ron; Johnson, Bruce R.; Rabinowitz, Barry; Goodwin, Steve; Crawford, George

doi:10.2175/193864706783710839

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Hydrocyclones are intermittently operated on RAS to remove heavy organic material, grit and dense inorganic material. There are indications that the CannibalTM Process is economically favorable for small to medium size plants and for those plants which already have aerobic digesters, which could be retrofitted for use as IR tanks (Roxburgh et al, 2006;Mesloh et al, 2007;Rickermann et al, 2007. This makes this process particularly applicable to industrial wastewater treatment applications.…”

Section: Combination Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current State of the Practice of Sludge Reduction Technologies

Sandino¹,

Roxburgh²,

Whitlock³

et al. 2008

proc water environ fed

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The handling and disposal of wastewater sludge is an increasingly costly portion of the operation of a wastewater treatment plant and is developing into an even greater future risk given the trend of decreasing availability and increasing costs of ultimate disposal options. Recently several technologies and process innovations have been proposed to reduce or eliminate the waste activated sludge (WAS) fraction resulting from treatment, or to render it more amenable to anaerobic digestion, a common sludge stabilization step, in order to maximize biogas production and the corresponding potential for energy cogeneration. Several of these technologies are also claiming significant improvements in the dewatering characteristics of the stabilized biosolids as a result of these pre-conditioning steps. The above claims are especially relevant for industrial facilities and smaller municipal facilities which frequently have no primary sludge but generate large quantities of difficult-to-dewater waste biomass. WERF's 05-CTS-3 Evaluation of Processes to Reduce Activated Sludge Solids Generation andDisposal, which started in the Spring of 2007, seeks to establish a comprehensive evaluation methodology for WAS reduction processes based on the in-depth consideration of a select number of technologies considered to be representative of the many options currently available in the marketplace. These technologies will cover both those intended to reduce the generation of residual sludge from the liquid treatment process, as well as those designed to pre-condition whatever sludge is produced in order to make it more amenable to a subsequent stabilization process such as anaerobic digestion. This paper presents the results of a literature review task conducted in the initial stages of the project, and is intended to be the first one of a series of papers in which the results of this important project are presented to the Residuals and Biosolids community of practitioners. This literature review places into perspective the basic mechanism behind the different WAS Reduction technologies, finding applications worldwide, identifying their application point within the treatment facility (i.e., digestion pretreatment, treatment of activated sludge recycle streams), and defining its development status.

show abstract

Section: Combination Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current State of the Practice of Sludge Reduction Technologies

Sandino¹,

Roxburgh²,

Whitlock³

et al. 2008

proc water environ fed

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The high electricity demand required to oxidize most of the COD and the resulting reduction of the sludge production identifies the niche of the Cannibal process. The advantage of using the Cannibal process over other secondary treatment processes is very site‐specific and is most likely to be favorable for small‐ to medium‐sized facilities, particularly those below the threshold for anaerobic digestion systems, as pointed out by Roxburgh et al (2006), and where sludge disposal costs are high and electricity costs are low. The capacity of the 28 Cannibal facilities treating municipal wastewaters reported by Sandino and Whitlock (2010) ranged from 4000 to 230 000 m 3 /d (1 to 17 mgd), with a median of 45 000 m 3 /d (12 mgd), which appear just below the threshold for anaerobic digestion.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms for Reduced Excess Sludge Production in the Cannibal Process

Labelle

Dold

Comeau

2015

Water Environment Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reducing excess sludge production is increasingly attractive as a result of rising costs and constraints with respect to sludge treatment and disposal. A technology in which the mechanisms remain not well understood is the Cannibal process, for which very low sludge yields have been reported. The objective of this work was to use modeling as a means to characterize excess sludge production at a full‐scale Cannibal facility by providing a long sludge retention time and removing trash and grit by physical processes. The facility was characterized by using its historical data, from discussion with the staff and by conducting a sampling campaign to prepare a solids inventory and an overall mass balance. At the evaluated sludge retention time of 400 days, the sum of the daily loss of suspended solids to the effluent and of the waste activated sludge solids contributed approximately equally to the sum of solids that are wasted daily as trash and grit from the solids separation module. The overall sludge production was estimated to be 0.14 g total suspended solids produced/g chemical oxygen demand removed. The essential functions of the Cannibal process for the reduction of sludge production appear to be to remove trash and grit from the sludge by physical processes of microscreening and hydrocycloning, respectively, and to provide a long sludge retention time, which allows the slow degradation of the “unbiodegradable” influent particulate organics (XU,Inf) and the endogenous residue (XE). The high energy demand of 1.6 kWh/m3 of treated wastewater at the studied facility limits the niche of the Cannibal process to small‐ to medium‐sized facilities in which sludge disposal costs are high but electricity costs are low.

show abstract

“…When an ultrasonic field is applied to a liquid medium, tiny bubbles form during the cavitation process (Mason, 2007). For wastewater applications it appears that the economics favor the use of piezoelectric systems due to the high energy intensity required to lyse the cellular material in the sludge (Roxburgh et al, 2006). The force of the bubble implosions breaks up sludge particles when applied in sewage sludge treatment.…”

Section: Biosludge Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The largest installation is the Sonico installation for WAS pretreatment for enhanced digestion at the 400-MLD (106-mgd) Mangere WWTP in New Zealand (Roxburgh et al, 2006). However, the number of manufacturers with equipment designed for wastewater treatment applications and with experience in this complicated field is rather limited.…”

Section: Biosludge Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of power ultrasound in biofuel production, bioremediation, and other applications

Virkutytė¹

2015

Power Ultrasonics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sludge Minimization Technologies- Doing more to get Less

Cited by 14 publications

References 2 publications

Current State of the Practice of Sludge Reduction Technologies

Current State of the Practice of Sludge Reduction Technologies

Mechanisms for Reduced Excess Sludge Production in the Cannibal Process

The use of power ultrasound in biofuel production, bioremediation, and other applications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About