• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.763-770
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mechanical(ball-mill) solubilization of excess sludge especially focused on the TSS(total suspended solid) reduction during the conventional aerobic digestion of sewage sludges including primary and/or excess sludge, HRT was examined at the 10 days and 20 days. According to the results of this study, TSS removal efficiency of solubilized excess sludge was almost two times higher than that of non-solubilized excess sludge. And as the proportion of the primary sludge increased, TSS removal efficiency became worse because primary sludge rarely contained microbial cells which could be easily solubilized physically. It was also proved that by the application of proper solubilization techniques to the excess sludge, HRT for the aerobic digestion could be lessened(above 50%) dramatically keeping the same or better digestion performance. The fact that between primary and excess sludges, only the excess sludge is quite effective in the sludge solubilization and in it's reduction says that excess sludge releasing sources are key-point in the sludge cake reduction field as a source control.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.497-503
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• 2008

The Oxic-Settling-Anaerobic(OSA) process is a modified activated sludge processes for sludge reduction. It is evaluated that the sludge production in OSA process can decrease to 88% because of biomass decay and kinetic parameter($Y_H$ 0.237mgVSS/mgCOD, $b_H$ $0.195d^{-1}$) in anaerobic reactor, when compared with CAS process. However, it has problems caused by sludge reduction such as increase of nutrient loading. In case that the anoxic condition through the introduction of the intermittent aeration for the enhancement of nitrogen removal ability build up and enough rbCOD is suppled, maximum 88% of nitrogen is removed in the OSA process. If the OSA process optimizing the intermittent aeration cycle is applied to the separate sewage system with high rbCOD fraction, it can be converted to advanced process in terms of the sludge reduction and nitrogen removal, simultaneously.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.530-538
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• 2009

The Oxic-Settling-Anaerobic (OSA) treatment process, a modified Conventional Activated Sludge (CAS) process, was developed for the purpose of sludge reduction. The insertion of a sludge holding tank into a sludge return line, an anaerobic reactor, forming an OSA process, may provide a cost-effective way of reducing excess sludge production during a process. The OSA process was evaluated for its sludge reduction ability by kinetic parameter and mass balance, with an observed excess sludge reduction of 63.5%, as $P_{X.VSS}$, compared with the conventional activated sludge process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.395-406
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• 2010

In this study, anaerobic digestion, electro-oxidation and electro-fenton oxidation processes were investigated to reduce oily refinery sludge. Anaerobic digestion process was not suitable for oily activated sludge reduction because of characteristics itself and, as experimental results revealed, reduction efficiency was low for electro-oxidation process. However, 40% total suspended solid reduction of oily activated sludge was obtained by electro-fenton oxidation process, operating at pH=1, 0.5 A and $Fe^{2+}$:$H_2O_2$ ratio = 1:30. In addition, higher reduction efficiency was obtained as reaction time was increased (30, 60, 90, 120 min) despite of low $H_2O_2$ concentration. From the results, it has been investigated that electro-fenton oxidation is efficient process for oily activated sludge reduction.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.508-514
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• 2004

Industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants produce large amounts of sludge cakes for final disposal. This problem is an inevitable drawback inherent to the activated sludge process. Both the reduction of the amount of sludge produced and improvement of its dewaterability are presently very important issue also in Korea. So many pre-treatment processes have been developed in order to improve sludge dewatering efficiency. In this study the effects of hydrogen peroxide and paper sludge mixing processes were considered as reasonable alternatives to enhance sludge dewaterability. The CST of sludge was significantly decreased, and dewaterability improved by hydrogen peroxide oxidation treatment. The optimum dosage of hydrogen peroxide was proved to be 10mg/g-TS (when TS of sludge was 2%) with the conditions of pH 4 and only 1~2 minutes of reaction time. The mixing of paper sludge with sewage sludge was turned out to be very effective in reduction of sludge cake; 30% of sludge cake reduction was accomplished. Optimum mixing ratio of paper sludge was about 30%(v/v). This process also could save 25% of polymer to be required. These two alternatives are somewhat realistic, but it was concluded that paper sludge mixing process will be the best choice.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.559-566
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• 2003

From this research, the performances of a sludge reduction in the sewage sludge aerobic digestion was experimented by using a sludge pretreatment and membrane bioreactor. The submerged plate membrane was used as the solid-liquid separation membrane. After drawing small amounts of sludge in a bioreactor and then doing the alkaline treatment and ozone treatment, the sludge was sent to back to the reactor. The HRT in the reactor was set as 5 days and the operation in the reactor was carried out at the DO of 1mg/L on average. After 100 days of operation in the reactor, it was shown that the reduction efficiency of total solids was more than 83%. Most of volatile solids were removed through mineralization, and the considerable portion of the non-volatile solids was dissolved and then flowed out with the effluent. Only about 16.3% of total solids in the sludge was accmulated in the reactor even without the loss of volatile fraction. Also, by deriving nitrification and denitrification in one reactor simultaneously, more than 90% of nitrogen removal effect was realized and the experiment was run smoothly without fouling of membrane, even in the high concentration of MLSS. Based on this experiment, sludge can be reduced considerably at a low HRT by these two newly suggested approach.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.264-270
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• 2006

In this research, volume reduction of activated sludge using electrolysis was studied to find an optimum condition using lab scale experiments. Wasted sludge was treated by electrolysis with controlling current density, chloride concentration, electrode distance, and reaction time. Volume of return sludge was reduced by 9.79% in average while maximum was 16.7%. Sludge volume reduction efficiency was affected by current density and reaction time. It was reversely proportional to the electrode distance. Especially current density was effective on the system performance significantly. Electric conductivity, salinity and COD were increased by electrolysis implying sludge disintegrated and converted to COD in part. An empirical equation for total solid removal efficiency by electrolysis was proposed by multiple linear regression analysis as: $TS_{rem}$(%) = 5.534 ${\times}$ current density (A/l) + 0.178 ${\times}$ reaction time (m) + 2.758.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.737-744
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• 2007

Recently, one of the most interesting topic in the field of wastewater treatment is the disposal of excess sludge. The new concept of excess sludge reduction with recirculation of solubilized sludge via effective microorganisms for cell disruption within the wastewater treatment process has been developed in this study. The alkalophiles for degradation of sludge cell wall were isolated as Exiguobacterium sp., which could be more effectively solubilized sludge in the anaerobic condition. The SCOD of solubilized excess sludge by Exiguobacterium sp. was up to about 2,000mg/L and average TN and TP concentration of solubilized component were 117mg/L and 58mg/L, respectively and C/N ratio was more than 17. To investigate the effects of solubilized sludge by alkalophiles on excess sludge reduction and nutrient removal efficiency, the pilot plant of $DF^{(S)}-MBR$ process, combined with membrane bioreactor and sludge solubilization tank, was operated. In the control run(without sludge solubilization), the daily sludge production was about 4.54 kgMLVSS/day. However, in the $DF^{(S)}-MBR$(with sludge solubilization), the daily sludge production was decreased to 1.39kgMLVSS/day. The effluent quality satisfied the effluent regulation in both cases. Furthermore, the $DF^{(S)}-MBR$ showed relatively better TN removal efficiency in spite of high influent loading. So we concluded that the solubilized excess sludge by alkalophiles was effectively degraded in the MBR process as the carbon source and 70% of sludge reduction efficiency can be achieved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.497-505
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• 2005

Domestic Sewage Treatment Plants are mostly based on biological treatment, in which large amounts of excess sludge are generated and occupy about 40 ~ 60% of the total sewage treatment costs. Several methods for sludge treatment has been so far reported as upgrading biodegradation of sludge; heat treatment, chemical treatment, including thermo-alkali and ozone, mechanical treatment including ultrasonic pulverization. But, it has a limitation in case of reducing the amount of excess sludge which are already producted. In this study, application of excess sludge reduction process using thermophilic aerobic bacteria for activated sludge was examined. The research was carried out two different stage. one for a biological wastewater treatment and the other for a thermophilic aerobic solubilization of the waste sludge. A portion of excess sludge from the wastewater treatment step was into the thermophilic aerobic sludge solubilization reactor, in which the injected sludge was solubilized by thermophilic aerobic bacteria. The solubilized sludge was returned to the aeration tank in the wastewater treatment step for its further degradation. Sludge solubilization reactor was operated at $63{\pm}2^{\circ}C$ with hydraulic retention time(HRT) of 1.5 ~ 1.7 day. Control group was operated with activated sludge process(AS) and experiment group was operated with three conditions(RUN 1, RUN 2, RUN3). RUN 1 was operated with AS without sludge solubilization reactor. RUN 2 were operated with AS with sludge solubilization reactor to examine correlation between sludge circulation ratio and sludge reduction ratio by setting up sludge circulation ratio to 3. RUN 3 was operated with sludge circulation ratio of 3 and MLSS concentration of 1,700~2,000mg/L to examine optimum operation condition. The quantity of excess sludge production was reduced sharply and in operation of RUN 3, sludge The quantity of excess sludge production was reduced sharply and in operation of RUN 3, sludge solubilization ratio and sludge reduction ratio were 53. 7%, 95.2% respectively. After steady state operation, average concentration of TBOD, SBOD, $TCOD_{Cr}$, $SCOD_{Cr}$, TSS, VSS, T-N, T-P of effluent were 4.5, 1.7, 27 .8, 13.8, 8.1, 6.2, 15.1, 1.8mg/L in the control group and were 5.6, 2.0, 28.6, 19.1, 9.7, 7.2, 16.1, 2.0mg/L in the experimental group respectively. They were appropriate to effluent standard of Sewage Treatment Plants.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.103-109
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• 2010

Anaerobic digestion has been widely used for the treatment of sludge, which is generated from the municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, for its volume reduction and methane production. Many researches on sludge pre-treatment have been carried out in order to enhance the performance of anaerobic digestion by increasing the hydrolysis of sludge which is the rate limiting step of anaerobic digestion. In this study, the effect of pre-treatment on sludge hydrolysis(solubilization), methane production and sludge reduction by anaerobic digestion after thermal, ultrasonic, and thermal-alkali sludge treatment were compared. Thermal-alkali treatment showed 67 and 70% solubilization with municipal and industrial wastewater sludge, respectively, while ultrasonic treatment and thermal treatment gave similar solubilization efficiency of 40% or more. Methane content of the anaerobic digestion gas reached 45~70% and pretreated sludge gave higher methane content than the control sludge. Methane production of thermal, ultrasonic, and thermal-alkali pre-treatment gave 2.6, 2.7, 3.5 times of municipal control sludge and 3.5, 4.1, 4.2 times of industrial control sludge, respectively. Sludge reduction of pre-treated sludge after anaerobic digestion gave 5~19% point higher than that of control sludge, and thermal-alkali treatment showed higher reduction efficiency than thermal and ultrasonic treatment. The results proved that pre-treatment contributed significantly not only for the methane production but also for the cost reduction of sludge treatment and disposal, and thermal-alkali treatment gave the best performance for the sludge treatment.