Journal
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Volume 315, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115090
Keywords
Sewage sludge; Incineration; Pyrolysis; Phosphorus recovery; Circular economy; Sewage sludge; Incineration; Pyrolysis; Phosphorus recovery; Circular economy
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic [QK21020022]
- Czech Academy of Sciences AV 21 Sustainable energy, and Specific university research-grant [A1_FTOP_2022_001, A2_FTOP_2022_003]
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With the growing emphasis on environmental protection, this review analyses different methods of sewage sludge treatment in terms of potential environmental risk and raw materials recovery. The study suggests that direct use of sewage sludge in agriculture should no longer be considered as a source of nutrients and organic matter due to its pollutant content. The review also highlights pyrolysis as a sustainable method for sludge treatment in remote locations with low heavy metal content, and discusses different technologies for recovering phosphorus from sludge ash.
With the growing emphasis on environmental protection, the ways of sewage sludge treatment are changing. In this review, we analyse different methods of sewage sludge treatment in terms of potential environmental risk and raw materials recovery. The review begins with a comparison and assessment of existing reviews on this topic. Then, it focuses on the properties and current utilisation of sewage sludge in agriculture and a brief description of sludge thermal treatment methods (mono-and co-incineration, pyrolysis, and gasification). The final part of the review is devoted to technologies for treating sludge ash from mono-incinerators to recover phosphorus, a substance listed as a critical raw material by the EU. Our results show that direct use of sewage sludge likewise composts containing sewage sludge should no longer be considered as a direct source of nutrients and organic matter in agriculture, because of its pollutant content. Co-incineration and landfilling represent a dead-end in sludge treatment due to the loss of raw materials, whereas pyrolysis is sustainable for remote locations with low heavy metal content sludge. Heavy metals also pose a problem for the direct use of sludge ash and must be therefore removed. There are already sludge ash processing technologies that are capable of processing ash to form a variety of raw materials such as phosphorus. These regeneration approaches are currently in their infancy, but are gradually being introduced. The sewage sludge treatment industry is rapidly evolving, and we have attempted to summarise and discuss the current state of knowledge in this review, which will provide a baseline towards the future of sewage sludge suitable treatment.
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