Wet oxidation: a pre-treatment procedure for sludge

Wet oxidation process is specially effective for wastes with a high organic matter which can not be removed by conventional treatment methods. The digested and raw activated sludges of PAKMAYA yeast factory are treated by wet oxidation process. The liquid-phase organic matter concentration [as total organic carbon (TOC)] was increased by 16.5% in 10 min during the wet oxidation in the presence of Cu as catalyst and H2O2. Lenghtening the period of the wet oxidation, the TOC-concentration was increased by 66% in 120 min. The biodegradability of the sludge after wet oxidation process was also examined. A very little development in the biodegradability was observed, when wet oxidation was applied as pre-treatment to the digested sludge (5% decrease as TOC, in the presence of Cu catalyst and H2O2). However, in the case of digestion of the raw sludge after the application of wet oxidation, the biodegradability increased significantly (approximately 75%, as TOC). Moreover, wet oxidation improved the ability of settling of sludge solids, as well as enhancing the treatment efficiency. Finally, the volume of settled solids was decreased by 80% in the presence of Cu and H2O2. NH3+-N, NO2(-)-N and NO3(-)-N concentrations in the supernatant decreased with the wet oxidation. pH value of the sludge increased from 6.6 to 7.8-8.0. Since stable sludge was taken from the digester where the nitrification process was progressing, a decrease in the nitrite concentration, with an increase in nitrate was observed in the digestion continuing after the wet oxidation pre-treatment. However, in the raw activated sludge, there was a nitrite formation only in the non-pretreated sludge.     

Investigation of organic nitrogen and carbon removal in the aerobic digestion of various sludges

Nitrification and carbon removal are investigated in aerobicbatch digestion of various sludges. The experiments arecarried out with activated sludge (Test 1) and with amixture of activated and primary settling sludge (Test2). The nitrification rate was monitored, measuring theNO₂ ^- concentration. At the 3rd day of thedigestion 40.7 mg_NO2-N/l and 3.89 mg_NO2-N/l werefound in Tests 1 and 2 respectively. In a digestion process,the degradation of biomass indicates the beginning of theendogenous phase. Our measure for biomass content of thesludge was protein analysis. In Test 1, the first day valuesof 50.93 mg_TOC/ g_{dry matter}/day and 138.53mg_protein-C/g_{dry matter}/day for specific TOC andprotein-C removal rates showed, that the digestion processbegan in the endogenous phase. For Test 2, since theendogenous phase began after removal of raw organic matter inprimary settling sludge, specific TOC and protein-C removalrates were observed to be 60.12 mg_TOC/g_{dry matter}/dayand 26.72 mg_protein-C/g_{dry matter}/day,respectively.