Wet Oxidation as an Advanced and Sustainable Technology for Sludge Treatment and Management: Results from Research Activities and Industrial-Scale Experiences

In this article, the effectiveness of an advanced sludge treatment technology (Wet Oxidation, WO) is presented by analyzing experimental studies at the lab scale and data collected during years of industrial-scale activities. The data showed good performances of WO on COD and VSS removal efficiencies—about 65–70% and 95–98%, respectively—and the effect of operating parameters (i.e., temperature and reaction time) on process efficiencies was highlighted. The energy balance of the WO systems indicated that about 90% of the energy entering the system may be recovered. Finally, a techno-economic assessment showed that WO can be a suitable solution for sludge treatment and minimization.

[1]  H. Debellefontaine,et al.  Wet air oxidation for the treatment of industrial wastes. Chemical aspects, reactor design and industrial applications in Europe , 2000 .

[2]  Abdallah Shanableh,et al.  PRODUCTION OF USEFUL ORGANIC MATTER FROM SLUDGE USING HYDROTHERMAL TREATMENT , 2000 .

[3]  Le-cheng Lei,et al.  Treatment of desizing wastewater from the textile industry by wet air oxidation , 2000 .

[4]  Jianhua Yan,et al.  Experimental Study on Thermal Hydrolysis and Dewatering Characteristics of Mechanically Dewatered Sewage Sludge , 2011 .

[5]  Pawel Plucinski,et al.  Wet air oxidation: a review of process technologies and aspects in reactor design , 1999 .

[6]  P. Strong,et al.  Enhancing denitrification using a carbon supplement generated from the wet oxidation of waste activated sludge. , 2011, Bioresource technology.

[7]  Wu Chen,et al.  Optimization of Sludge Dewatering Through Pretreatment, Equipment Selection, and Testing , 2013 .

[8]  Yue-Qin Tang,et al.  Pretreatment followed by anaerobic digestion of secondary sludge for reduction of sewage sludge volume. , 2013, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[9]  A. Gianico,et al.  ROUTES: innovative solutions for municipal sludge treatment and management , 2012, Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology.

[10]  Wei Tan,et al.  Optimization Study of Municipal Sludge Conditioning, Filtering, and Expressing Dewatering by Partial Least Squares Regression , 2014 .

[11]  Hojae Shim,et al.  Effects of operational conditions on sludge degradation and organic acids formation in low-critical wet air oxidation. , 2009, Journal of hazardous materials.

[12]  P. Matthews,et al.  The Use of Sewage Sludge On Land , 1979, Royal Society of Health journal.

[13]  Anastasia Zabaniotou,et al.  Utilization of sewage sludge in EU application of old and new methods--A review , 2008 .

[14]  Alexandros Kelessidis,et al.  Comparative study of the methods used for treatment and final disposal of sewage sludge in European countries. , 2012, Waste management.

[15]  Magdalena Svanström,et al.  Techno-economic and environmental assessment of sewage sludge wet oxidation , 2015, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[16]  Giorgio Bertanza,et al.  Wet oxidation of sewage sludge: full-scale experience and process modeling , 2015, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[17]  Daniel Duprez,et al.  EXPERIMENTAL AND PREDICTIVE APPROACH FOR DETERMINING WET AIR OXIDATION REACTION PATHWAYS IN SYNTHETIC WASTEWATERS , 2003 .

[18]  Adriana Laca,et al.  Decision criteria for the selection of wet oxidation and conventional biological treatment. , 2012, Journal of environmental management.

[19]  Manish Vashishtha,et al.  Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation of Oxalic Acid using Platinum Catalysts in Bubble Column Reactor: A Review , 2010 .