Treatment of municipal sludge by hydrothermal oxidation process with H₂O₂

The recent increase in municipal sludge worldwide has led to a great deal of interest in developing an efficient and environmentally friendly sludge treatment method. In the paper, the treatment of municipal sludge by hydrothermal oxidation (HTO) process with H₂O₂ as the oxidant was proposed. The impacts of HTO temperature and H₂O₂ mass fraction on the distribution of products, the moisture content, the migration behaviors of the heavy metals (HMs) of the resulted solid products, the concentration of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and NH₃-N contained in the resulted aqueous phase products and the pH value were investigated. The results indicated that the sludge reduction was achieved by HTO treatment, the increasing H₂O₂ mass fraction and HTO temperature can significantly improve the dewatering performance of the sludge. The potential toxicity fraction of Pb and Cd contained in the resulted solid residual increased with the increasing HTO severity and the potential toxicity fraction of solid residues was still lower than that of raw material. Acetic acid was the main VFAs produced from HTO treated sludge, and its concentration reached to the maximum value of 2923.41 mg/L at 230 °C under H₂O₂ mass fraction of 15%. The change in the pH of the resulted aqueous phase products was caused by the competition between the acidic (VFAs or CO₂) or alkaline (NH₃-N) substances derived from the sludge during HTO process. The HTO process was expected to be an efficient method for municipal sludge treatment due to its mild conditions and high heavy metal safety.