Lh. Mikkelsen et K. Keiding, Effects of solids concentration on activated sludge deflocculation, conditioning and dewatering, WATER SCI T, 44(2-3), 2001, pp. 417-425
Optimum conditioning of activated sludge in terms of minimum CST was shown
to correspond to the complete removal of turbidity, and the increase in tur
bidity with shear due to e.g. pumping is therefore expected to affect condi
tioning. The optimum polymer dosage was directly related to the turbidity o
f activated sludge after two minutes shear, and was considerably lower than
the dosage required for charge neutralisation. The turbidity produced by s
hear increased more than is proportional with solids concentration and was
directly related to the apparent viscosity. It is suggested that increasing
solids concentration causes increased surface erosion when network structu
res are broken, and this causes increases in turbidity and required polymer
dosage per solids mass. For Aby activated sludge, optimum polymer dosage p
er solids mass increased by 52% when the solids concentration was increased
from 8.2 to 13.7 g SS/I. Modelling of the effect of solids concentration p
redicts even higher increases in required polymer dosage for higher solids
concentrations. This means that reduced thickening prior to pumping and con
ditioning may be desirable when the hydraulic capacity of the dewatering de
vice is sufficient. Similar trends were observed for an anaerobically diges
ted sludge. For this sludge, reduction of turbidity with FeCl3 reduced the
polymer demand.