New sludge pretreatment method to improve dewaterability of waste activated sludge

The enhancements of electrolysis-pretreated conditioning were investigated in this study. Normalized capillary suction time (CST) was used to evaluate sludge dewaterability. Extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) concentration, viscosity and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were determined to explain the observed changes in conditioning process. It indicated that pretreatment at 50 v and 5 min with Ti/RuO2 anode was determined to be the optimal condition, which generated the lowest normalized CST and optimal soluble EPS concentration, leading to the decreasing of viscosity. EPS had positive correlation with the normalized CST. Subjecting to a combination of electrolysis pretreatment and flocculants conditioning, 50% dosage of cationic polyacrylamide (PAM) could be reduced. When co-conditioned with electrolysis and polymerization ferric sulfate (PFS), it did not present any clear advantages over PFS conditioning alone. Furthermore, SEM investigation indicated that electrolysis pretreatment could rupture sludge, release the interstitial water and extracellular substances, especially protein and polysaccharide, and consequently enhance its dewaterability.