Transformation and environmental risk of heavy metals in sewage sludge during the combined thermal hydrolysis, anaerobic digestion and heat drying treatment process

Abstract

The design of this study was to investigate the solid-aqueous migration and chemical speciation transformation of heavy metals (HMs) in the sewage sludge during the combined process of thermal hydrolysis, anaerobic digestion and heat-drying. The results showed that most of the HMs were still accumulated in the solid phase of various sludge samples after treatment. After thermal hydrolysis, the concentrations of Cr, Cu and Cd increased slightly. All the HMs measured after anaerobic digestion were concentrated obviously. While the concentrations of all HMs decreased slightly after heat-drying. The stability of HMs in the sludge samples was enhanced after treatment. The environmental risks of various HMs were also relieved in the final dried sludge samples.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Chemical speciation; Heat drying; Heavy metals; Risk assessment; Sewage sludge; Thermal hydrolysis.