[Performance and Factors Analysis of Sludge Dewatering in Different Wastewater Treatment Processes]

Sludge dewatering is one of the keys for sludge disposal and treatment of municipal wastewater treatment plants. In this study, the sludge dewaterability, flocculant consumption and costs of sludge dewatering for different wastewater treatment processes including A2/O and A2/O-MBR processes were analyzed, as well as the factors of sludge dewatering were analyzed by redundancy analysis (RDA) method, based on the data of one municipal wastewater treatment plant of Beijing in 2013. Results showed that both sludge dewaterability and flocculant consumption presented the seasonal variation, which means sludge dewatering was harder and coupled with higher flocculant consumption in the winter. Although the lower moisture content of dewatered sludge was obtained in the A2/O-MBR process (81.92% ± 1.64% ) compared with that in the A2/O process (82.56% ± 1.35%), the consumptions of flocculant [ (8.70 ± 7.25) kg x t(-1) DS] and electric energy (331.82 kW x h x t(-1) DS) in the A2/O-MBR process were higher than those in the A2/O process [(7.42 ± 2.96) kg x t(-1) DS, 121.57 kW x h x t(-1) DS for flocculant consumption and electric energy respectively], resulting in higher operation costs (RMB 204.76 yuan x t(-1) DS of flocculant consumption and RMB 231.61 yuan x t(-1) DS of energy consumption for the A2/O-MBR, RMB 175.00 yuan x t(-1) DS of flocculant consumption and RMB 84.86 yuan x t(-1) DS of energy consumption for the A2/O, respectively). Results of RDA showed that the seasonal variation of sludge dewaterability mainly depended on the content of organic matter in sludge which was related to the seasonal factors such as temperature, and was also impacted by the operating parameters such as SRT in wastewater treatment.