Modified sewage sludge as temporary landfill cover material

In order to study the feasibility of modified sewage sludge as landfill cover material and its performance in a complex landfill environment, strength and hydraulic conductivity tests were conducted. The permeability requirements for daily and interim covers were analyzed first. Based on saturated-unsaturated seepage calculations, it is suggested that approximately 1.0×10^-4 cm/s and 1.0 × 10^-5 cm/s are the appropriate values for the hydraulic conductivities of daily and interim covers, respectively. The strength and permeability requirements of the mixtures, when used as an interim cover, can be met at a sludge：lime：cement：silt：tire-derived aggregate （TDA） weight ratio of 100：15：5：70：15. Results also demonstrate that the solid content ratio of modified sewage sludge, which should be greater than 60% when modified sewage sludge is used as a temporary cover material, is crucial to both strength and hydraulic performance. In addition, as the duration of soaking of modified sewage sludge in synthetic leachate increases, the unconfined compressive strength increases, and the hydraulic conductivity decreases slightly or fluctuates between 1.0×10^-5 cm/s and 1.0 × 10^-6 cm/s, still meeting the requirements for an interim cover. The reduction in hydraulic conductivity of modified sewage sludge under the effect of synthetic leachate, as well as the long-term and environmental performance of the modified sewage sludge, should be examined in future studies.

Development of a novel modified EGSB reactor for municipal sewage treatment at ambient temperatures

A novel modified expanded granular sludge bed(EGSBm) reactor was developed for anaerobic treatment of municipal sewage with mixed liquid recirculation instead of effluent recirculation commonly adopted by a conventional EGSB(EGSBc) reactor.Performances of these two reactors were compared in treating municipal sewage at ambient temperatures ranging from 8 to 26 ℃.At an upflow liquid velocity(Vup) of 10.3 m/h,the mean concentrations of filtrated COD(CODfilt) and COD of the EGSBm effluent were determined to be 59.4 and 95.9 mg/L,respectively,which were significantly lower than those of the EGSBc effluent operated under identical experimental conditions.When the organic loading rate was suddenly increased from 1.2 to 7.2 kg COD/(m3·d),the EGSBm regained the removal efficiency of previous operation phase in 10 d.Hydrodynamic characteristics of the reactors were compared using the residence time distribution(RTD) model.It was found that the treatment efficiency of EGSBm kept increasing as the Vup increased.The polymerase Chain Reaction-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis(PCR-DGGE) technique was used to analyze the microbial diversity in EGSBm.Fingerprinting pattern indicated that some species in the inoculating sludge were still reserved in the granular sludge of EGSBm,moreover,several new species occurred.

Improvement of sludge dewaterability with modified cinder via affecting EPS

The relationship between the improvement of sludge dewaterability and variation of organic matters has been studied in the process of sludge pre-conditioning with modified cinder, especially for extracellular polymeric substances （EPS） in the sludge. During the conditioning process, the decreases of total organic carbon （TOC） and soluble chemical oxygen demand （SCOD） were obviously in the supernatant especially for the acid modified cinder （ACMC）, which could be attributed to the processes of adsorption and sweeping. The reduction of polysaccharide and protein in supernatant indicated that ACMC might adsorb EPS so that the tightly bound EPS （TB-EPS） decreased in sludge. In the case of ACMC addition with 24 g·L^-1, SRF of the sludge decreased from 7.85 × 10^12 m·kg^-1 to 2.06× 10^12 m·kg^-1, and the filter cake moisture decreased from 85% to 60%. The reconstruction of ＂floc mass＂ was confirmed as the main sludge conditioning mechanism. ACMC promoted the dewatering performance through the charge neutralization and adsorption bridging with the negative EPS, and provided firm and dense structure for sludge floc as skeleton builder. The passages for water quick transmitting were built to avoid collapsing during the high-pressure process.