Adsorption of heavy metals on sonicated activated sludge

The objective of this work is to assess heavy metals fixation capacity on sonicated activated sludge. Ultrasonic treatment of sludge has lead to its desintegration and changes physico-chemical characteristics such as soluble chemical oxygen demand, proteins or particle size distribution. This study has shown that these modifications have improved significantly the capacity of sludge to fix heavy metals. Indeed, after a sonication of 15 min and storage of three days after irradiation, the equilibrium capacity is increased about 45%. The restructuration of sludge during the storage seems to increase the accessibility to active binding sites.