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An Alternative Arrangement for the Alum Sludge Management: Minimising Waste with Low-Cost Solar Techniques

Received: 22 January 2016     Accepted: 30 January 2016     Published: 31 March 2016
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Abstract

Alum sludge produced from the drinking water treatment plants was used to investigate the improvement capabilities in its dewatering properties. The sludge was passed through a laboratory solar still towards reducing the sludge volume during the dewatering process. A number of parameters describing the distillate and the sludge were measured at the end of each experiment in order to determine the process behaviour under conditions of relatively high solar radiation which is reached to 1014 W/m2 and temperature levels which reaches inside the still to a maximum of 87°C. Conventional chemical conditioners in augmentation with the solar dewatering such as polyelectrolyte, and advanced conditioner like photo-Fenton’s reagent were used in the sludge conditioning studies. Experimental results indicated that 10 mg/L of anionic polyelectrolyte conditioner enhance the dewateraibility in the terms of SRF reduction to 97%. However, it reached to 78% when the Fenton’s reagent is added. It is realized that dewatering is accelerated when the polymer is added compared to that of Fenton’s reagent conditioning; Fenton’s reagent offers a more environmentally safe option. Moreover, the volume of distillate collected is nearly a double fold increase in the case of the conditioning with the Fenton’s reagent rather than that for the organic polymer. In addition, the turbidity of the supernatant are: 3.4, 2.7 and 247 NTU for polyelectrolyte, Fenton’s reagent treatment and for the raw sludge, respectively. Furthermore, the optimum influencing variables of Fenton’s reagent is evaluated by applying Box-Behnken experimental design based on the response surface methodology (RSM), i.e. Fe2+, H2O2 and pH are 50 mg/L, 600 mg/l and 8.5, respectively.

Published in American Journal of Chemical Engineering (Volume 4, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11
Page(s) 30-37
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2016. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Alum Sludge, Dewatering and Conditioning, Fenton’s Reagent, Organic Polymers, Solar Still, RSM

References
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  • APA Style

    Maha A. Tony, Aghareed M. Tayeb, Yaqian Zhao. (2016). An Alternative Arrangement for the Alum Sludge Management: Minimising Waste with Low-Cost Solar Techniques. American Journal of Chemical Engineering, 4(2), 30-37. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11

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    ACS Style

    Maha A. Tony; Aghareed M. Tayeb; Yaqian Zhao. An Alternative Arrangement for the Alum Sludge Management: Minimising Waste with Low-Cost Solar Techniques. Am. J. Chem. Eng. 2016, 4(2), 30-37. doi: 10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11

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    AMA Style

    Maha A. Tony, Aghareed M. Tayeb, Yaqian Zhao. An Alternative Arrangement for the Alum Sludge Management: Minimising Waste with Low-Cost Solar Techniques. Am J Chem Eng. 2016;4(2):30-37. doi: 10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11,
      author = {Maha A. Tony and Aghareed M. Tayeb and Yaqian Zhao},
      title = {An Alternative Arrangement for the Alum Sludge Management: Minimising Waste with Low-Cost Solar Techniques},
      journal = {American Journal of Chemical Engineering},
      volume = {4},
      number = {2},
      pages = {30-37},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajche.20160402.11},
      abstract = {Alum sludge produced from the drinking water treatment plants was used to investigate the improvement capabilities in its dewatering properties. The sludge was passed through a laboratory solar still towards reducing the sludge volume during the dewatering process. A number of parameters describing the distillate and the sludge were measured at the end of each experiment in order to determine the process behaviour under conditions of relatively high solar radiation which is reached to 1014 W/m2 and temperature levels which reaches inside the still to a maximum of 87°C. Conventional chemical conditioners in augmentation with the solar dewatering such as polyelectrolyte, and advanced conditioner like photo-Fenton’s reagent were used in the sludge conditioning studies. Experimental results indicated that 10 mg/L of anionic polyelectrolyte conditioner enhance the dewateraibility in the terms of SRF reduction to 97%. However, it reached to 78% when the Fenton’s reagent is added. It is realized that dewatering is accelerated when the polymer is added compared to that of Fenton’s reagent conditioning; Fenton’s reagent offers a more environmentally safe option. Moreover, the volume of distillate collected is nearly a double fold increase in the case of the conditioning with the Fenton’s reagent rather than that for the organic polymer. In addition, the turbidity of the supernatant are: 3.4, 2.7 and 247 NTU for polyelectrolyte, Fenton’s reagent treatment and for the raw sludge, respectively. Furthermore, the optimum influencing variables of Fenton’s reagent is evaluated by applying Box-Behnken experimental design based on the response surface methodology (RSM), i.e. Fe2+, H2O2 and pH are 50 mg/L, 600 mg/l and 8.5, respectively.},
     year = {2016}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - An Alternative Arrangement for the Alum Sludge Management: Minimising Waste with Low-Cost Solar Techniques
    AU  - Maha A. Tony
    AU  - Aghareed M. Tayeb
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    JF  - American Journal of Chemical Engineering
    JO  - American Journal of Chemical Engineering
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    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2330-8613
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajche.20160402.11
    AB  - Alum sludge produced from the drinking water treatment plants was used to investigate the improvement capabilities in its dewatering properties. The sludge was passed through a laboratory solar still towards reducing the sludge volume during the dewatering process. A number of parameters describing the distillate and the sludge were measured at the end of each experiment in order to determine the process behaviour under conditions of relatively high solar radiation which is reached to 1014 W/m2 and temperature levels which reaches inside the still to a maximum of 87°C. Conventional chemical conditioners in augmentation with the solar dewatering such as polyelectrolyte, and advanced conditioner like photo-Fenton’s reagent were used in the sludge conditioning studies. Experimental results indicated that 10 mg/L of anionic polyelectrolyte conditioner enhance the dewateraibility in the terms of SRF reduction to 97%. However, it reached to 78% when the Fenton’s reagent is added. It is realized that dewatering is accelerated when the polymer is added compared to that of Fenton’s reagent conditioning; Fenton’s reagent offers a more environmentally safe option. Moreover, the volume of distillate collected is nearly a double fold increase in the case of the conditioning with the Fenton’s reagent rather than that for the organic polymer. In addition, the turbidity of the supernatant are: 3.4, 2.7 and 247 NTU for polyelectrolyte, Fenton’s reagent treatment and for the raw sludge, respectively. Furthermore, the optimum influencing variables of Fenton’s reagent is evaluated by applying Box-Behnken experimental design based on the response surface methodology (RSM), i.e. Fe2+, H2O2 and pH are 50 mg/L, 600 mg/l and 8.5, respectively.
    VL  - 4
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Author Information
  • Basic Engineering Science Department, Faculty of Engineering, Minoufiya University, Minoufiya, Shebin Elkoum, Egypt

  • Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, EL-Minia University, EL-Minia, Egypt

  • UCD Dooge Centre for Water Resources Research, School of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University College Dublin, Newstead, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland

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