Upgrading of existing sludge treatment processes for phosphorus management serving a EBPR WWTP

For a large-scale wastewater treatment plant to comply with phosphorus consents using enhanced biological phosphorus removal processes, its sludge and liquor treatment processes need to be carefully upgraded. In this case study, the wastewater treatment plant of interest has three different types of sludge treated by two different and independent sludge treatment processes. The task of upgrading the sludge treatment systems to serve an EBPR process while satisfying other regulatory and operational constraints in a cost effective way presents an interesting challenge. A range of process options was investigated to include P-rich surplus activated sludge treatment, raw sludge treatment, and sludge liquors treatment. Sludge pre-liming, i.e. to introduce lime slurry into raw liquid sludge before the dewatering stage, was studied in bench-scale and full-scale trials for phosphorus precipitation and pathogen reduction. It was applied to the mixture of surplus activated sludge and imported sludge. The results showed that a complete phosphorus precipitation was achieved at above pH 9 with lime addition of 7% (w/w as calcium hydroxide to sludge dry weight). A satisfactory 2-log pathogen reduction was consistently achieved at above pH 11 with lime addition of 14% (w/w). The process significantly simplified the potential upgrading work for sludge and liquor treatment, compared to other alternatives.