Sludge generated in wastewater treatment processes must be treated
in an adequate manner, and therefore disposed of in an environmentally
friendly manner. The biggest obstacle to the efficient use of sludge is the
high water content, therefore the development of methods to accelerate
the sludge dewatering process is particularly important. For the purposes of
the research, the waste sludge created in the process of purifying ammoniaphenol wastewater in the GIKIL factory was used. Sludge conditioning was
performed by adding a commercial flocculant (0.1 % solution) in combination
with pyrophyllite, kaolin clay and shredded cardboard. According to earlier
research, the volume of waste sludge with the addition of a suitable flocculant
could be reduced by more than 5 times compared to the initial amount,
leaving behind a large amount of separated water that can be returned to the
process. The results show that the addition of commercial flocculant in the
amount of 0.8 % gives the best results (reduction of sludge volume by 78.8 %).
A lower percentage was found in samples with a mixture of flocculants with
pyrophyllite (78 %) and kaolin (77.6 %), while the combination of flocculants
with waste cardboard was ineffective (64.4 %). Addition of flocculant to
waste sludge resulted in a decrease in specific filtration resistance (1.15×107
s2/g). A decrease in specific resistance was also observed in flocculant/kaolin
clay (0.8×107 s2/g) and flocculant/cardboard (1.09×107 s2/g) samples. Sludge
conditioning also resulted in a reduction of suspended solids in the neonate
compared to settled raw sludge without additives.
