The focus of wastewater treatment plants over the last few decades has been to efficiently collect and treat wastewater prior to discharging it to the environment. These processes invariably produce an effluent sludge material in which all of the pollutants, pathogens and other substances are not completely degraded during the treatment process. Little attention has been historically paid to the disposal of this residual material. However, this is now changing for multiple reasons. The beneficial reuse of this unavoidable by-product is increasingly seen as an economically and ecologically important part of the wastewater treatment process. This in turn, has increased the demand for efficient sludge treatment equipment.
Sludge is wet and therefore very expensive to transport, it does not compact very well, it may contain a considerable amount of pathogens, organic pollutants and heavy metals, and it has the potential to give off undesirable odors. Wastewater treatment plants have been able to ‘land apply’ much of their sludge on local farms or dump them at landfill sites, but these practices are coming under increasing amounts of public backlash or banned altogether. Thus, additional treatment steps are required to convert the sludge into valuable, dry biosolids which can save money and be beneficially reused. To accomplish this, the moisture content, volume of pathogens, and overall odors must be reduced. The calorific value and biological stability of the effluent solids must be increased. When these treatment conditions are met, the end product is a dry biosolid that can be beneficially reused as a fuel in waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, coal-fired power plants, or cement kilns, and can be used as a fertilizer for agricultural use, or Class A land application. Finally, the volume of the wet sludge is dramatically reduced during its conversion to dried biosolids, which dramatically reduces handling and hauling costs.
Parkson has a dedicated and highly trained team of professionals in the biosolids management field, coupled with an award-winning product portfolio to help you identify and properly manage your sludge processing and disposal needs. Included in this portfolio is Parkson’s ThickTech™ Rotary Drum Thickener (RDT), the industry leading sludge thickener. Its performance is unmatched, with sludge volume reduction and 90% and a 98% capture rate – all achieved with very low polymer use. Additionally, the system has low requirements for horsepower and water consumption and provides valuable operational efficiencies.