Volatile Organic Compounds Released From
Thermal Drying Of Sewage Sludge
Author(s)
M. F. Gomez-Rico, A. Fullana & R. Font
Abstract
Thermal drying of sewage sludge is a treatment to obtain a material that can be
used as co-fuel for some chemical industries, but some volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) can be emitted and consequently must be considered. In this
work the emissions of these VOCs were studied. The sewage sludge produced by
a domestic water treatment plant was dried in a simple laboratory scale
distillation/evaporation apparatus at different temperatures (80, 90, 100 and
120 ºC). The sludge was heated and a flow of air released water and volatile
compounds. The water was condensed and separated, and the VOCs were
analysed in the resultant gas fraction. More than forty compounds were
identified and the total yield ranged from 545 to 591 mg kg-1 dry weight, without
significant differences for the temperatures used. The compounds with the
highest yields were dimethyl disulfide, toluene, dimethyl trisulfide and 1,2,4-
trimethylbenzene, with great differences in yields from the rest of the
compounds found. Between the compounds identified, several types were found:
aliphatic hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons, halogenated or not, and
compounds with sulphur. Since most of the identified VOCs are carcinogenic,
toxic or harmful by inhalation, there is a need to control the emitted gases from
thermal drying.
Keywords: VOCs, thermal drying, sewage sludge, temperature.
1 Introduction
The sewage sludge that leaves the wastewater treatment plant has a high content
of water (up to 90%). The elimination of this water means a great reduction in
volume that involves lower costs of transport and dumping of the sludge.
Moreover, mechanical dehydration by filter press, centrifuges, etc. is not always
enough to satisfy the environmental regulations and use the sludge for energy
Keywords
VOCs, thermal drying, sewage sludge, temperature.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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