Rheological Characterization of Sludges during Belt Filtration Dewatering Using an Immobilization Cell
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 9
Abstract
An immobilization cell was successfully coupled to a controlled stress rheometer to quantify rheological properties of a sludge during its dewatering. An anaerobically digested sludge and a synthetic sludge were analyzed and conditioned at various doses with a cationic flocculant. Direct strain-controlled oscillatory analyses could not be performed due to rapid dewatering, but controlled shear rate analysis quantified the increases in sludge viscosity as the solid’s concentration increased. Immobilization times determined by these experiments—viscosity versus dewatering time—agree with capillary suction times, since both indicate the time required for water removal ( from 0.81 to 0.99). However, capillary suction time tests were more strongly influenced by filtrate viscosity at high polymer doses. The immobilization cell allowed quantified amounts of shear to be imposed during dewatering, with greater shearing found to provide more rapid immobilization. This finding is consistent with the design of belt filtration dewatering devices, but demonstrates that current models do not account for a critical aspect of this process.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study was done in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware. The first writer was financially supported by the Technical and Scientific Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)-NATO Science Fellowship Program and by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF0229293: Chemical, Rheological, and Physical Exploration of Gel-Like Behavior in Conditioning and Dewatering Processes. The writers acknowledge Ms. Melanie Boudreault of Anton Paar-Physica and Professor Norman J. Wagner and Dr. Young Sil Lee for valuable assistance in the UD Rheology Laboratory. The writers thank Dr. Johannes Mueller of the Technical University of Braunschweig for the synthetic sludge formulations.
References
Abu-Orf, M. M., and Dentel, S. K. (1999). “Rheology as a tool for polymer dose assessment and control.” J. Environ. Eng., 125(12), 1133–1141.
American Public Health Association (APHA), American Water Works Assocation (AWWA), Water Environment Federation (WEF). (1995) Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 19th ed., A. D. Eaton, L. S. Clesceri, and A. E. Greenberg, eds., Washington, D.C.
Ayol, A. (2005). “Determination of rheological properties of sludges produced at different treatment stages. Environmental engineering.” Ph.D. thesis, Dokuz Eylul Univ., Izmir, Turkey.
Ayol, A., Dentel, S. K., and Filibeli, A. (2004). “Use of drainability and filterability simulations for evaluation of oxidative treatment and polymer conditioning of sludge.” Water Sci. Technol., 50(9), 9–16.
Ayol, A., Dentel, S. K., and Filibeli, A. (2006). “Toward efficient forthcoming to efficient sludge processing using novel rheological parameters: Dynamic rheological testing.” Water Sci. Technol., 54(5), 17–22.
Baudez, J. C., and Coussot, P. (2001). “Rheology of aging, concentrated, polymeric suspensions: Application to pasty sewage sludges.” J. Rheol., 45(5), 1123–1139.
Campbell, H. W., and Crescuolo, P. J. (1989). “Control of polymer addition for sludge conditioning: A demonstration study.” Water Sci. Technol., 21, 1309–1317.
Chaari, F., Racineux, G., Poitou, A., and Chaouche, M. (2003). “Rheological behavior of sewage sludge and strain-induced dewatering.” Rheol. Acta, 42, 273–279.
Channell, G. M., and Zukoski, C. F. (1997). “Shear and compressive rheology of aggregated alumina suspensions.” AIChE J., 43, 1700–1708.
Chenenvert, M. E., Al-Abri, S., and Jin, L. (1994). “Novel procedures accurately measure drilling mud dynamic filtration.” Oil Gas J., 92(17), 62–66.
Chitikela, S., and Dentel, S. K. (1998). “Dual chemical conditioning and dewatering of anaerobically digested biosolids: Laboratory evaluations.” Water Environ. Res., 70, 1062–1069.
Dentel, S. K., and Abu-Orf, M. M. (1995). “Laboratory and full-scale studies of liquid stream viscosity and streaming current for characterization and monitoring of dewaterability.” Water Res., 29, 2663–2672.
Dentel, S. K., Abu-Orf, M. M., and Griskowitz, N. J. (1993). Guidance manual for polymer selection in wastewater treatment plants. Publ. D0013, Water Environment Research Foundation, Alexandria, Va.
Dursun, D. (2007) “Gel-like behavior of biosolids in conditioning and dewatering processes.” Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Delaware, Newark, Del.
Dursun, D., Ayol, A., and Dentel, S. K. (2004). “Physical characteristics of a waste activated sludge: Conditioning responses and correlations with a synthetic surrogate.” Water Sci. Technol., 50(9), 129–136.
Galla, C. A. (1996). “Laboratory prediction of belt filter press dewatering dynamics.” MS Thesis, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ill.
Gladman, B., De Kretser, R. G., Rudman, M., and Scales, P. J. (2005). “Effect of shear on particulate suspension dewatering.” Chem. Eng. Res. Des., 83(7), 933–936.
Halde, R. E. (1980). “Filterbelt pressing of sludge: A laboratory simulation.” Journal WPCF, 52(2), 310–316.
Larson, R. G. (1999). The structure and rheology of complex fluids, Univ. of Michigan, Oxford University Press, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Mezger, T. (2006). The rheology handbook: For users of rotational and oscillatory rheometers, Vincentz Network, Hannover, Germany.
Novak, J. T., Prendeville, J. F., and Sherrard, J. H. (1988). “Mixing intensity and polymer performance in sludge dewatering.” J. Environ. Eng., 114(1), 190–198.
Physica, immobilization cell TEK-IMC. (2003). ⟨www.anton-paar.com/physica⟩ (July 30, 2003).
Severin, B. F., Nye, J. V., and Kim, B. J. (1999). “Model and analysis of belt drainage thickening.” J. Environ. Eng., 125(9), 807–815.
U.S. EPA. (1982) Design manual for dewatering municipal wastewater sludge, Washington, D.C.
Willenbacher, N., Hanciogullari, H., and Radle, M. (1999). “New laboratory test to characterize immobilization and dewatering of paper coating colors.” Tappi J., 82, 167–174.
Wollny, K. (2001). “New rheological method to determine the dewatering kinetics of suspensions.” Appl. Rheol., 11(2), 197–202.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 9 • September 2010
Pages: 992 - 999
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 5, 2009
Accepted: Jan 19, 2010
Published online: Jan 22, 2010
Published in print: Sep 2010
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.