A review and assessment of emerging technologies for the minimization of excess sludge production in wastewater treatment plants

This paper focuses on the most promising technologies, available for full-scale applications, aimed to the on-site reduction of the excess sludge produced in municipal wastewater treatment plants. New techniques are added to the conventional stages of wastewater treatment, both integrated in the activated sludge bioreactors or applied as pretreatment for the enhancement of anaerobic digestion. A concise review about the alternatives based on physical, chemical or biological mechanisms is described. The present work highlights the efficiency of two such techniques, sonolysis and alkaline thermolysis integrated on the return flow from the secondary settler into the activated sludge bioreactors. The investigation on the effect of sonolysis and alkaline thermolysis on activated sludge samples was carried out by evaluating the COD concentration released in soluble and colloidal form and biodegradability measured by respirometry. The physicochemical treatments of sludge have several advantages (easy management, stability in performances and flexibility), but are associated with high operational costs that often limit the wide-scale applications. The application of hybrid methods, that couple almost two techniques for the enhancement of efficiency with respect to a single one, could optimise the sludge reduction, giving a significant saving in energy consumption for large-scale operations, but further research is needed.