Thermische Schlammkonditionierung nach dem Porteous-Verfahren

In Nuremberg (Germany), each year about 25,000 tons (dry matter) of sewage sludge are obtained as by-product of waste water treatment. The digested sludge consists of 96% water. Until 1992 it was thermally stabilized using the Porteous procedure: the sludge was heated in an autoclave up to a temperature of 180–200 °C at a pressure of 28 bar. After pressure reduction and moving to a thickener, a substantial part of the liquid could be removed. After running through a chamber filter, the sludge contained only about 50% dry matter. This treatment does not only remove water; organic matter is also degraded or evaporated. Between November 1991 and May 1992, the sludge was analyzed four times before and after the drying process and examined for heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Hg, Zn), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and PCDD/F. The concentration of heavy metals and PCB (related to dry matter) increased by a faktor of 1.3 after the drying process. This effect may be explained by the decrease of organic matter during drying. In the case of PCDD/F, the ITQ increased by a factor of 3.2, for some congeners even by a factor of 8. The only explanation can be that during thermal conditioning PCDD/F is formed by precursors as chlorophenols. This formation is probably catalyzed by metals as copper or nickel and sped up by the higher temperatures.