Journal: Journal of Water Process Engineering

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Elsevier

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2214-7144

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  • Effect of temperature during the hydrothermal carbonization of sewage sludge on the aerobic treatment of the produced process waters
    Item type: Journal Article
    Blach, Tobias; Lechevallier, Pierre; Engelhart, Markus (2023)
    Journal of Water Process Engineering
    The treatment of the highly contaminated process water produced during the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of waste activated sludge is of major concern for the full-scale implementation of the HTC process. So far, no satisfying treatment strategies have been elaborated and the biodegradability under aerobic conditions has hardly been studied. To fill these gaps, aerobic tests were first carried out in batches with HTC process waters produced at 190 degrees C, 218 degrees C and 249 degrees C, and two parallel sequencing batch reactors (SBR) were operated to treat process waters produced at 190 degrees C and 217 degrees C. Both experiments show that the HTC temperature has only a little effect on the elimination of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). In the aerobic batch tests, DOC removal were 80.5-81.9 %. In the SBR, 28 % of the initial DOC was found to be recalcitrant, and 25-28 % of the initial nitrogen. In the SBR experiments, the nitrification was also monitored, and nitrification inhibition test were conducted on both process waters obtained at 190 degrees C and 217 degrees C. Nitrification the initial SBR reactors was only possible after dilution of the process waters, which indicates the presence of inhibiting substances. The inhibition tests validated those observations, and showed that process waters derived at 217 degrees C had a higher inhibition potential. This study demonstrates that aerobically treated HTC process waters are still too polluted to be discharged in a wastewater treatment plant: model calculations showed an increase in effluent DOC of 8.3 mg C/L.
Publications 1 - 1 of 1