Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297

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Process Safety and Environmental Protection

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psep

High-dry dewatering of sludge based on different pretreatment

conditions
Binqi Rao a,∗ , Youfa Zhu b , Mingzhou Yu a , Xilong Lu a , Yanjian Wan a , Genqing Huang c ,
Xiaoyu Su a , Xiaodong Liu a
a
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China
b
Hangzhou Norman Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, 311200, China
c
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Reducing the moisture content (Mc) of sludge contributes greatly to subsequent treatment and disposal.
Received 18 April 2018 An ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) and thin-cake-press (TCP) dewatering device was designed to achieve high-
Received in revised form dry sludge using technique involving the addition of little or no cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM). The
15 November 2018
relationships between the Mc of the cake and compression pressure, dewatering time, sludge quality
Accepted 13 December 2018
and category, pressurization mode, pretreatment methods and the thickness of the cake were studied.
Available online 23 December 2018
The compression pressure, dewatering time, sludge quality and category, thickness of the cake and
pretreatment methods substantially influence the Mc of the cake, while the pressurized mode has almost
Keywords:
Sludge
no influence on the Mc of the cake. The time of pressure drop (TOPD) reflects, to a certain extent, the
High-dry dewatering dewatering performance of sludge. The Mc of municipal sludge can reach to 45% or 39.47% with 60 or
Ultrahigh-pressure 90 min of dewatering time, respectively, and 12 MPa compression pressure, achieving a cake thickness of
Moisture content 3.2 mm and 3.1 mm, respectively. Sludge with high organic matter content is more difficult to dehydrate,
Pretreatment and the dewatering performance of municipal sludge is considerably worse than that of river sludge
Thin-cake-press and electroplating sludge. Pretreatment methods can change the dewatering performance of sludge.
Microwave and freeze-thaw pretreatments are favorable for dewatering performance, while ultrasound
and magnetic field pretreatment are disadvantageous for dewatering. After microwave pretreatment, the
Mc of municipal sludge can reach a minimum value of 28%. Mc has a positive correlation with the thickness
of the cake; the thinner the sludge cake is, the lower the moisture content is. Thus, the thin-cake-press and
microwave pretreatments are effective methods for high-dry dewatering. Sludge has good compression
characteristics, and the compression ratios (Cr ) of municipal activated sludge and river sludge are 79%
and 59%, respectively.
© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Sludge production has increased dramatically during the last
few decades due to an increased urban and industrial water purifi-
cation activities. By the end of 2015, the annual output of sludge
(moisture content of 80%) in China exceeded 40 million tons, and it
is expected to reach 609̃0 million tons by 2020. This large volume
of sludge has caused considerable trouble such as economic losses,
environmental disruption etc. Thus, it is of great concern in China
now (Dai, 2012).
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: raobinqi@cjlu.edu.cn (B. Rao).
The volume and quality of sludge with a moisture content (Mc)
of 90% is two times greater than the volume and quality of sludge
with an Mc of 80%, when the Mc decline continually to 50%, the
quality of sludge will be reduced by 60% once more. Sludge with a
high Mc is inconvenient for subsequent transportation, landfilling,
drying, incineration, recycling and resource utilization because of
the high total costs (Dursun and Dentel, 2009; Zheng et al., 2017;
Mahmoud et al., 2013; Maria et al., 2015; Seames et al., 2002).
To reduce the costs of treatment and disposal, it is necessary to
improve its dewaterability and reduce the sludge volume (Ning
et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, dewatering is the primary
method of sludge treatment and disposal (Rao et al., 2017a,b).
Mechanical filter press dewatering of sludge is widely employed
as an energy-saving method compared to thermal drying. Energy
consumption data show that mechanical filter dewatering only

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2018.12.018
0957-5820/© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
Nomenclature
A filtration area (m2 )
Cr compression ratio
K filter cake permeability coefficient
L thickness of the sludge cake (m)
L1 initial thickness of the sludge (mm)
Le thickness of the final cake at the end of the dewa-
tering process (mm)
Mc moisture content of sludge cake (%)
Q filtrate flow (m3 /s)
R filter medium impedance (m−2 )
Rc cake impedance (m−2 )
Sp particle specific surface area (m2 /m3 )
W1 weight of wet filter cake (g)
W2 weight of filter cake after drying at 105◦ C for 24h (g)
Greek letters
ε porosity of the filter bed (m3/m3)
 filtrate viscosity (Pa.s)
P filtration pressure difference (Pa)
uses approximately 3–5% of the energy of the heat used in ther-
mal drying dewatering. Thus, it is considered optimal to remove
the maximum water through mechanical filter press dewatering
(Iritani et al., 2016). However, mechanical filter press dewater-
ing usually requires pretreatment to improve its dewaterability,
such as the addition of lime and ferric chloride and/or polymers
(Zhang et al., 2017; Lee and Liu, 2000; Lo et al., 2001; Pei et al.,
2014; Sakohara et al., 2007), heat, freeze/thaw treatment (Tuan
and Sillanpää, 2010; Yu et al., 2014), ultrasonication (Laurent et al.,
2009; Mohammadi et al., 2011), microwave irradiation(Tian et al.,
2006), Fenton’s reagents, oxidation, etc (Yu et al., 2019, 2017; Yang
et al., 2013, 2011; Yu et al., 2016; Lu et al., 2017; Liang et al., 2015).
The sludge characteristics are modified by the massive addition
such as lime and ferric chloride before dewatered. And the massive
lime and ferric chloride have disadvantages to the follow-up treat-
ment and disposal. For example, ferric chloride is a toxic, highly
acidic chemical, and it easily erodes equipment, especially in high-
temperature conditions, and improves the concentration of dioxin
in incineration flue gas. The addition of ferric chloride to sludge is
not suitable for incineration. Lime will explode in the process.
The mechanical filter press dewatering involves an ultrahigh-
pressure (UHP) deep dewatering in which the compression
pressure is substantially higher than that of a normal diaphragm
frame filter press, and it removes more water through UHP. Liang
et al. (2015) investigated the influence of sludge with differ-
ent organic matter contents on sludge dewatering, discussed the
main mechanism of sludge dewatering in the presence of Fenton’s
reagent and lime, and the Mc of sludge cake could be reduced to
less than 50%. Liu et al. (2015) studied the flexible high-pressure
steel frame filter press as the depth of the machine equipment
sludge dewatering system. The Mc of cake could be reduced to less
than 50% by using different feeding methods, different compres-
sion pressures for different characteristics of shale, and a crushing
pressure of 1.0 to 5.0 MPa segment booster. Xiao et al. (2013) used
mechanical filtration with a 13–15 MPa press combined with ferric
chloride and lime preconditioning, the Mc of the cake reached 54%
with 20 min dewatering time. The previous researches showed that
dewatering was often combined with pretreatment, the final Mc of
cakes usually ranged from 40% to 60% after UHP dewatering, and the
Mc of cake is still high that can not meet the demand of follow-up
treatment and disposal, so the previous dewatering technology is
commonly defined as deep dewatering. In this article, Mc less than
289
40% of dewatered sludge is defined as high-dry dewatering (HDD)
which will benefit greatly for subsequent treatment and disposal.
Thus, a method and mechanism research of high-dry dewatering
has important theoretical and practical value of sludge treatment
and disposal.
In conclusion, a new ultrahigh-pressure and thin-cake-press
(TCP) dewatering method is proposed to achieve high-dry dewa-
tering. In the study, the relationships between the parameters
including compression pressure, dewatering time, sludge quality,
sludge category, pressurized mode, time of pressure drop (TOPD),
pretreatment method and Mc, thickness of cake were investigated
using both experimental and theoretical methods
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Material
To study the dewatering performance and Mc of cake of dif-
ferent sludge category, several types of sludge samples were
collected, namely municipal activated sludge from Hangzhou QiGe
wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), thermal-hydrolyzed acti-
vated sludge from ZiBo WWTP, river sludge from the Huzhou River,
and electroplating sludge from Dongyang WWTP. Hangzhou QiGe
WWTP dispose municipal wastewater using an anaerobic-anoxic-
oxic (A/A/O) process. The sludge was dewatered preliminary using
a belt filter press after pretreatment with flocculants and the
addition of 2–3 kg cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM) per ton of
dry sludge. The Mc of the sludge ranges from 78% to 83% after
dewatering, and the Mc varies slightly depending on the date of
sampling. The characteristics of the Hangzhou municipal sludge,
ZiBo thermal- hydrolyzed municipal sludge, river sludge and elec-
troplating sludge are listed in Table 1.
2.2. Apparatus
The apparatus is composed of two parts. One part is a UHP dewa-
tering device, as shown in Fig. 1, which was newly designed in this
work. This device consists of a hydraulic system, lifting jack, steel
chamber, filter chamber, moving piston, upper cover plate, filter
cloth, reinforced cloth, pressure controller and air pump. The diam-
eter of filter chamber is 100 mm, and the maximum compression
pressure can reach 12 MPa. The other part is a sludge pretreatment
system, which consists of a microwave treatment device, a freeze-
thaw device, an ultrasound treatment device and a magnetic field
treatment device, as shown in Fig. 2. Detailed information on the
pretreatment devices is listed in Table 2.
2.3. Methods
2.3.1. Pretreatment methods
To explore the effects of different pretreatment methods on
sludge dewatering performance, municipal activated sludges from
Hangzhou QiGe WWTP were selected for this study. The samples,
which were diluted to a Mc of 90%, were pretreated by microwav-
ing, freezing-thawing, ultrasound and magnetic irradiation. Then,
the pretreated sludges were dewatered using the UHP dewater-
ing device with 12 MPa pressure for 60 min. Finally, the Mc and
thickness of the sludge cakes were measured.
2.3.1.1. Microwave pretreatment. Two groups of microwave pre-
treatment experiments were carried out. In the first group, sludge
was treated with a 400 W microwave for 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, 120 s, 150 s,
180 s, and 210 s of conditioning time. In the other group, sludge was
treated with different microwave powers for 120 s of conditioning
time at powers of 100 W, 400 W, 550 W, and 700 W.
290 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297

Table 1
Characteristics of the four sludge samples.

Sludge category Origin Flocculant added condition Mc of sludge Organic matter content (%)

Municipal sludge of Hangzhou Hangzhou QiGe WWTP, China 2‰-3‰ CPAM 78%–83% 47.4
Thermal-hydrolyzed ZiBo WWTP, China 2‰ CPAM 80% 25.9
municipal sludge of ZiBo
River sludge Huzhou River, China Without CPAM 60%–70% 1.4
Electroplating sludge Dongyang electroplating factory, China Without CPAM 86% 2.1

Fig. 1. Apparatus used in the experiment: (a) schematic diagram of experimental device, (b) UHP dewatering device.

Fig. 2. Pretreatment methods: (a) microwave pretreatment, (b) freeze-thaw pretreatment, (c) ultrasound pretreatment, (d) magnetic field pretreatment.

Table 2
Detailed information on sludge pretreatment devices.

Pretreatment device Model Parameters Manufacturer

Microwave treatment device
Freeze-thaw device
Ultrasound treatment device
Magnetic field treatment device
MK2270M Input power: 1200 W Haier Electric Co., Ltd., China
Output power: 700 W
BCD-98 Freezing temperature: 0 ◦ C to Wuhan Dongyang Electrical
−15 ◦ C Appliance Co., Ltd, China
KQ3200E Operating frequency: 40 kHz Kunshan Ultrasonic Instrument
Output power: 150 W Co., Ltd, China
Oscillation frequency: 2450 MHz
SB-280 Stable magnetic field strength: Changchun Electric Technology
0–1 T Development Co., Ltd, China
Pole diameter of electromagnet:
280 mm
Polar diameter: 70–120 mm
 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
Table 3
Parameters for the single-factor experiments.
Relationship of Mc and factor Fixed parameter
Mc and compression pressure Quality of sludge: 100 g
Dewatering time: 60 minutes
Mc and dewatering time Quality of sludge: 100 g
compression pressure: 12 MPa
Mc and quality of sludge Dewatering time: 60 minutes
compression pressure: 12 MPa
Mc and sludge category Dewatering time: 60 minutes
compression pressure: 12 MPa
2.3.2. Freeze-thaw pretreatment
The freeze-thaw pretreatments were divided into one and
two cycles of freezing-thawing. In the procedure for once-frozen-
thawed samples, sludge was placed into a refrigerator for 24 h of
freezing at −10 ◦ C and then thawed for 12 h at 20 ◦ C. The procedure
for twice-frozen-thawed samples included freezing raw sludge for
24 h at −10 ◦ C, thawing it for 12 h at 20 ◦ C, and then repeating the
same treatment.
2.3.3. Ultrasound pretreatment
The sludge was treated with 150 W ultrasonic power for differ-
ent times periods, including 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, 4 min, 5 min, and
6 min.
2.3.4. Magnetic field pretreatment
The sludge was conditioned with different magnetic field inten-
sities of 0.1 T, 0.2 T, 0.4 T, 0.6 T, 0.8 T, and 1 T for 10 min.
2.3.5. Dewatering process
In the process of dewatering, sludge was placed in the steel
chamber and the upper cover plate was fixed on the steel chamber.
Then, the hydraulic system and lifting jack pushed the moving pis-
ton upward, and sludge was compressed at a pressure ranging from
0 to 12 MPa (controlled by a pressure controller). The filtrate flowed
out from the small hole in the moving piston and upper cover plate.
During the dewatering process, high-pressure and high-speed air
blows across the sludge and takes out the sludge filtrate.
At the end of the experiment, the sludge cake was taken out and
the thickness and the Mc of the sludge cake were measured. The
thickness of the cake was measured using a vernier caliper, and the
Mc of the sludge cake was measured using the conventional dry
gravimetric method (GB1898-2002) according to Eq. (1):
W1 − W2
Mc = × 100% (1)
W1
where Mc is the moisture content of sludge cake (%); W1 is the
weight of wet filter cake (g); and W2 is the weight of filter cake
after drying at 105 ◦ C for 24 h (g).
The compression ratio (Cr ) was used to characterize the degree
of compression of sludge (Rao et al., 2017a,b), as defined by Eq. (2):
L1 − Le
Cr = × 100% (2)
L1
where Cr is the compression ratio; L1 is the initial thickness of the
sludge (mm); Le is the thickness of the final cake at the end of the
dewatering process (mm); and L1 − Le is the amount of compression
(mm).
During the experiments, single-factor experiments were per-
formed to study the relationships between the Mc of sludge cake
and compression pressure, dewatering time, sludge quality, sludge
category, pressurized mode, TOPD and pretreatment methods. The
parameters investigated in the experiments are listed in Table 3.
The effects of two pressurization modes on the Mc of the cake
were also studied. One pressurization mode was “press directly”
291
Variable parameter
compression pressure: 1–12 MPa
Dewatering time:10–160 minutes
Quality of sludge: 60–250 g
Quality of sludge: 100–250 g
Different sludge
(PD) to the required compression pressure of 12 MPa and remain-
ing unchanged; the other mode was “press step by step” (PS) up
to 12 MPa over the same time period as used for PD. For example,
PD mode attained 12 MPa directly and maintained that pressure for
30 min, whereas PS mode began at 2 MPa and maintained that pres-
sure for 5 min, then increased the pressure successively to 4 MPa,
6 MPa, 8 MPa, 10 MPa, and 12 MPa, maintaining each for 5 min.
The power of the sludge press is generated by a hydraulic sys-
tem. The pressure will decrease during the dewatering process;
therefore, the pressure must be supplemented to stabilize the pres-
sure for squeezing sludge. After a short time the pressure will drop
again, and it must be supplemented again, and so forth. In this
manuscript, the time of pressure drop (TOPD) is defined as the time
over which the maximum pressure is reduced by 10%; this also
means that the TOPD is time required for pressure to drop from
12 MPa to 10.8 MPa.
3. Results and discussion
The final dewatered cakes for different sludge categories and
pretreatment methods are shown in Fig. 3. The diameter of the final
cake is 100 mm, the thicknesses of the cakes range from 2.5 mm to
10 mm, and the Mc of the final cakes range from 30% to 80%. The Mc
of the cakes has a direct relation with the thicknesses of the cakes,
and the sludge category and pretreatment methods have obvious
effects on the Mc of the cakes. The sludge cake is thinner and harder
with lower Mc, whereas it is thicker and softer with higher Mc. In
some cases, the cake will be broken and can not maintain the cake
shape, as shown in Fig. 3(f).
3.1. Effect of compression pressure
3.1.1. Relationship between Mc and compression pressure
Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the Mc of the cakes
and different compression pressure for 100 g sludge and 60 min
of dewatering time. As the pressure increased, the Mc of the cake
obviously decreased at the beginning of dewatering process. For
the Hangzhou municipal sludge, the Mc was reduced to less than
60% with 2 MPa pressure, and with a further increase in pressure,
the curve of Mc pressure decreased gradually. When the compres-
sion pressure increases from 2 MPa to 12 MPa, the Mc of sludge cake
decreases from 59.8% to 45.0%, a decrease of 14.8%.
The dewatering process is a solid-liquid separation process,
which can be illustrated by the Daicy theorem (Eq. (3)) and Kozeny-
Carman Equation (Eq. (4)) (Tien and Ramarao, 2013; Wang et al.,
2015):
dV A.P A.P
Q = =K = (3)
dt L (R + RC )
1 dV ε3 P
=  . (4)
A dt k (1 − ε)2 Sp2 L
where Q is filtrate flow (m3 /s); V represents filtrate volume passing
through filter layer (m3 ); A is the filtration area (m2 ); t represents
292 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
Fig. 3. Final dewatered cakes of different sludge categories and pretreatment methods:(a) cake of municipal activated sludge, (b) cake of river sludge, (c) cake of electroplated
sludge, (d) sludge cake following microwave pretreatment, (e) sludge cake following freeze-thaw pretreatment, (f) sludge cake following ultrasound pretreatment, (g) sludge
cake following magnetic field pretreatment.
Fig. 4. Relationship between the Mc of the cake and compression pressure.

time of filtration (s); K is the filter cake permeability coefficient; k
is a numeric constant equal to 5; P represents the filtration pres-
sure difference (Pa);  is filtrate viscosity (Pa.s); R represents filter
medium impedance (m−2 ); RC represents cake impedance (m−2 );
ε is the porosity of the filter bed (m3 /m3 ); Sp is the particle specific
surface area (m2 /m3 ); and L is the thickness of the sludge cake (m).
Based on Eqs. (3) and (4), the filtration speed is proportional to
the pressure. Hence, at the beginning of the dewatering process,
a large volume of free water was removed from the sludge with a
certain pressure, and the Mc of the sludge decreased significantly.
For the municipal activated sludge with good compressibility, as
pressure increased in the later stage of the dewatering process,
the sludge particles were compressed tightly, the porosity of the
sludge (ε) decreased and the impedance (RC ) increased. The resis-
tance to filtrate flow also increased, and the difference between
the resistance to filtrate flow and the power of extrusion was small.
Moreover, the bound water in the sludge is difficult to remove with
the mechanical press. Therefore, the Mc pressure curve tended to
flatten. For the electroplated sludge, at the beginning of the dewa-
tering process, the Mc of the sludge obviously decreased and the Mc
pressure curve was steep. The Mc of the cake could be reduced to
50% with 2 MPa of pressure, but as pressure increased further, the
Mc pressure was gentler than that of municipal activated sludge.
This difference occurred because the electroplating sludge is mainly
composed of inorganic matter, the permeability of the filter cake is
very good, and the water is mainly free water, which can be eas-
ily removed with the mechanical press method; therefore, most of
the water is discharged in the early dewatering process. For the
frozen-thawed municipal sludge, at the beginning of the dewa-
tering process, the Mc of the sludge decreased significantly. As
pressure increased in the later stage, the Mc decreased gently. The
Mc pressure curve of the frozen-thawed municipal sludge was sim-
ilar to that of the electroplating sludge. The results show that the
municipal activated sludge, with a high content of organic matter
and poor dewatering performance, can be pretreated by freezing-
thawing to improve its capacity for dewatering.
3.1.2. Effects of pressurization mode on the Mc of cake
The effects of two pressurized modes on the Mc of cakes were
studied in this article. The “press directly” (PD) mode involves a
constant pressure of 12 MPa, whereas the “press step” (PS) mode
increases the pressure incrementally to reach 12 MPa over the same
time as in PD. Fig. 5 shows the influence of pressurization mode on
the Mc of the cake.
The results show that the Mc of the cake in the PD mode is
almost equal to that of PS mode over the same dewatering time.
Thus, the pressurized mode has almost no influence on the dehy-
dration effect. These findings are helpful for the design of multistage
pressurization UHP dewatering devices.
3.1.3. TOPD of different sludge samples
Fig. 6 shows the TOPD of different sludge categories. At the
beginning of the dewatering process, TOPD was very short, ranging
from several seconds to more than 100 s. As the process contin-
ued, TOPD obviously increased in the later stage and lasted more
than one thousand seconds when the pressure was supplemented
the fifth time. Different sludge categories and pretreatment meth-
ods resulted in different TOPDs. At the beginning of dewatering, the
ultrasound pretreated sludge had the longest TOPD and the electro-
plating sludge had the shortest TOPD. The frozen-thawed municipal
sludge and river sludge had relatively short TOPDs because the elec-
troplated sludge, frozen-thawed municipal sludge and river sludge
 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
Fig. 5. Relationship between the pressurization mode and Mc of cake.
Fig. 6. TOPD of different sludge samples.
have good dewatering performances; the filtrate flowed fast, the
volume of sludge decreased rapidly, and the cake became thinner,
causing the pressure to drop rapidly. The sludge pretreated by ultra-
sound exhibited poor dewatering performance; the filtrate flowed
slowly, and the change in sludge volume was small. The sludge
resistance to a pressure drop was strong, leading to a slow pres-
sure drop and long TOPD. However, at the later stage, the TOPD of
electroplated sludge with a high content of inorganic matter was
very long because the cake is very resistant to compression. Its com-
pression characteristics (Cr) are poor; therefore, there is almost no
change in sludge volume. The results show that at the beginning
of the dewatering process, TOPD can react to the dewatering per-
formance of the sludge to a certain extent. The shorter the TOPD
is, the better the dewatering performance is. This phenomenon can
provide a theoretical basis for the design of hydraulic power sys-
tems in a sludge press, which indicates that the hydraulic power
system should rapidly supplement the pressure with short TOPD
in the sludge dewatering process. The energy consumption of the
hydraulic system will also increase.
3.2. Relationship between dewatering time and Mc of cake
Fig. 7 shows the relationship between the dewatering time and
the Mc of the cake. As the dewatering time increases, the Mc of the
cake decreases significantly. For the Hangzhou municipal sludge,
the Mc of the cake decreased to 55.7% and 39.47% after 30 and
90 min dewatering time, respectively. For the river sludge and elec-
293
Fig. 7. Relationship between dewatering time and Mc of cake.
Fig. 8. Relationship between sludge quality and the Mc, Cr and thickness of cake.
troplated sludge, the Mc of the cakes decreased to 18.52% and
39.04% after 10 min, respectively, and decreased to 15.3% and 36.5%
after 50 min, respectively. The Mc of sludge decreased considerably
at the beginning of the dewatering process, decreased slowly in the
middle of the dewatering process and almost remained unchanged
in the final stage of the dewatering process. This pattern shows
that the dewatering performances of river sludge and electroplated
sludge are superior to that of municipal activated sludge. In a short
period of time, the Mc of river sludge and electroplated sludge can
reach a very low value, meaning that the rapid dehydration method
can be used for the high-dry sludge dewatering of river sludge and
electroplated sludge.
3.3. Relationship between sludge quality and Mc, Cr and
thickness of cake
Fig. 8 shows the relationship between municipal sludge quality
and the Mc, Cr and thickness of the cake under 12 MPa compres-
sion pressure for 60 min of dewatering time. Sludge quality has a
great influence on the Mc, Cr and thickness of the cake. With an
increase in sludge quality, the Mc and cake thickness increase and
the Cr decrease. The Mc, cake thickness, and Cr are 36.1%, 1.3 mm,
and 80.1%, respectively, for a sludge quality of 60 g, whereas these
values are 64.8%, 11 mm, and 61.1%, respectively, for a sludge qual-
ity of 250 g. Two hundred fifty grams is 4.16 times 60 g, but the
thickness of the 250 g sludge is 8.5 times that of the 60 g sludge.
Mc is positively related to the cake thickness; the lower the Mc,
the thinner the cake. The Mc of a municipal activated sludge cake
is less than 50%, and the thickness is less than 5 mm. When the Mc
is less than 40%, the thickness is less than 4 mm. According to the
294 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
Fig. 9. Mc of cakes for different sludge categories.
Daicy theorem and Kozeny-Carman Equation, filtration efficiency
is proportional to the pressure and porosity ε and is inversely pro-
portional to the filtration resistance (R + RC ) and thickness of cake
L. The thinner the cake is, the better the dehydration effect. How-
ever, the bound water in the sludge cannot be squeezed out by a
mechanical press, therefore, the Mc of the municipal sludge cake is
difficult to exceed a minimum limit.
Current equipment, such as a diaphragm frame filter press and
ultrahigh-pressure elastic machine, can reduce the Mc of munic-
ipal activated sludge to 50%–60% after the addition, conditioning
approximately 20–30% quality of dry sludge, and the thickness of
the cake is approximately 25–35 mm. The Mc of municipal acti-
vated sludge dewatered by current equipment is approximately
20%–30% higher than in our study. One of the important reasons is
that the cake of the sludge dewatered using current equipment is
too thick, resulting in a higher Mc. Thus, a TCP would be a better
method to realize HDDT.
3.4. Effects on Mc of cake for different sludge categories
The Mc of cakes associated with different sludge categories was
investigated with 12 MPa pressure and a 60 min dewatering time.
The results are shown in Fig. 9. For 100 g dewatered sludge, the
Mc of river sludge, thermal-hydrolyzed municipal sludge, electro-
plated sludge, and Hangzhou municipal sludge cakes was 15.3%,
29.5%, 36.2%, and 45.0% respectively. The Mc values of different
sludge categories were obviously different. As shown in Table 1,
the organic matter contents of river sludge, thermal-hydrolyzed
municipal sludge, electroplated sludge, and Hangzhou munici-
pal sludge were 1.4%, 25.9%, 2.1%, and 47.4% respectively. Thus,
the composition of sludge, especially organic matter content, has
a great influence on the Mc of the cake (Tuan and Sillanpää,
2010), and the dewatering performance of municipal sludge can
be improved by thermal-hydrolysis.
On one hand, the higher the organic matter content, the more
serious the formation of colloids and the more difficult it is to
dehydrate. Studies have shown that the content of extracellular
polymeric substances (EPS) is an important factor that affects the
dewatering performance of sludge, and EPS serve as the media
supporting the zoogloea (Houghton et al., 2001). As organic mat-
ter content increases, the microbes grow rapidly and the content
of EPS stabilizes the zoogloea structure, decreasing the capacity
for sludge dewatering. On the other hand, it can be explained on
the view of water form distribution. Bound water is difficult to
release, its content can affect the dewatering performance of sludge
(Turchiuli and Fargues, 2004). The municipal activated sludge has
high organic matter content; it also has a very high content of com-
bined water, which is difficult to remove with a mechanical press.
The content of organic matter in river sludge is very low, and it has
more free water, which is easy to remove with a mechanical press.
The thermal-hydrolyzed municipal sludge was pretreated before-
hand, and its internal structure and EPS were destroyed; the bound
water was released and became free water.
The Mc of the cake increased as the sludge quality increased.
However, the degrees of increase for different sludge types differed.
When the sludge quality increased from 100 g to 250 g, the Mc of the
cake of river sludge increased from 15.3% to 17.6% (2.3%), the Mc of
the cake of thermal-hydrolyzed municipal sludge increased by 3.7%,
and the Mc of the cake of Hangzhou municipal sludge increased
from 45% to 64.8% (19.8%). These changes occurred because the
Hangzhou municipal sludge had a high content of organic matter
and good compressibility. The greater the quality of the sludge is,
the greater the compressibility is, causing the drainage channel to
be blocked and the resistance of sludge cake to increase. The resis-
tance of the filtrate to overcome the clogging increases greatly from
the drainage channel (Tang et al.,2016). However, the river sludge is
mainly inorganic, and its compressibility is poor; when the sludge
is compressed, the drainage channel is better than the municipal
sludge of Hangzhou, and the specific resistance of the cake of the
river sludge is also lower.
3.5. Mc of cake after different pretreatment methods
3.5.1. Microwave pretreatment
The original municipal sludge of Hangzhou with a Mc of 90% was
pretreated with different treatment times and microwave powers
and then dewatered under 12 MPa pressure for 60 min by an UHP
device, the results of which are shown in Fig. 10. The treatment
time and microwave power have great influence on the Mc of the
cake. Fig. 10(a) indicates a linear relationship between the Mc and
the treatment time. The dehydration effect is the best at point PTMc ,
where the Mc of the cake has a minimum value of 28% and the treat-
ment time is 120 s. Before point PTMc , the Mc of the cake began to
decrease as treatment time increased, and after point PIMc , the Mc
of the cake gradually increased. Fig. 10(b) shows that there is also
a linear relationship between the Mc and microwave power. The
dehydration effect is the best at point PIMc , where the Mc of the
cake has a minimum value of 28% and the microwave power is
400 W. The Mc of the cake began to decrease as microwave power
increased and then gradually increased. Because the microwave
caused overflowing of intracellular substances in the sludge, the
bound water in the sludge converted to free water, which can be
removed easily by a mechanical press. In this way, microwave treat-
ment benefits dewatering, but as treatment time and microwave
power increase further, a large number of intracellular substances
overflow. The viscosity increases, which is adverse to dehydration
(Yang et al., 2013). Therefore, the best treatment time is 120 s and
the optimal microwave power is 400 W for the dehydration effect
of sludge.
3.5.2. Freeze-thaw pretreatment
Table 4 shows the relationship between the Mc of the cake
and freezing-thawing pretreatment. The Mc values of the cake of
untreated sludge, once-frozen-thawed sludge, and twice-frozen-
thawed sludge were 45.0%, 42%, and 38.1% respectively. The Mc
of the cake of once-frozen-thawed sludge was lower than that of
the untreated sludge, and after it was twice-frozen-thawed, the
Mc of the cake decreased further. This change occurred because
after the freeze-thaw pretreatment, the ice crystals that were pro-
duced in the frozen sludge destroyed the sludge colloids, removed
the EPS and cations from sludge cells (Martel, 2000; Örmeci and
Vesilind, 2001), and caused partially bound water to be converted
to free water (Lee and Lee, 1995). As such, the dehydration perfor-
mance of sludge was improved after the freeze-thaw pretreatment.
 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297 295

Fig. 10. Relationship between the Mc of the cake, microwave treatment time and microwave intensity: (a) influence of microwave treatment time on the Mc of the cake, (b)
influence of microwave power on the Mc of the cake.

Table 4
Mc of cakes with freeze-thaw pretreatment.

Sludge Untreated sludge Once-frozen-thawed sludge Twice-frozen-thawed sludge

Mc of cake(%) 45.0 42.0 38.1

Fig. 11. Relationship between Mc of the cake and ultrasonic treatment time and magnetic field intensity:(a) influence of ultrasonic treatment time on Mc of cake, (b) influence
of magnetic field intensity on Mc of cake.

The colloid was further destroyed during the twice-frozen-thawed
pretreatment in the same way as in the once-frozen-thawed treat-
ment; thus, it is more favorable for the dehydration performance
of sludge.
3.5.3. Ultrasound pretreatment
The municipal sludge with an Mc of 90% was pretreated with
different ultrasonic times and then was processed with 12 MPa
pressure for 60 min. The results are shown in Fig. 11(a). In the dewa-
tering process, the amount of sludge filtrate that was pretreated by
ultrasound was obviously less than without pretreatment. The Mc
of the cake increased greatly and the dehydration effect deterio-
rated obviously after it was pretreated with ultrasound. Moreover,
the Mc of the cake increased as the ultrasonic treatment time
increased. The Mc of the cake was as high as 80.7% when the ultra-
sonic treatment time was 5 min because for a highly concentrated
sludge (i.e., the Mc of the sludge exceeds 90%), the cavitation effect
damages the sludge particles and decreases their size, changing the
internal structure of the sludge and increasing its viscosity and spe-
cific resistance to filtration. Hence, this treatment resulted in a poor
dewatering performance of sludge (Ren, 2014; Sun and Luo, 2011).
3.5.4. Magnetic field pretreatment
Fig. 11(b) shows the relationship between the Mc of the cake
and magnetic field intensity. The magnetic field pretreatment is
unfavorable to the dehydration effect of high-concentration sludge,
and the dehydration effect is worse as the magnetic field strength
increases. When the magnetic field was 0.1 T, the Mc of the cake
was only 1.7% higher than that untreated by the magnetic field.
When the magnetic field was 1 T, the Mc of the cake reached 70%,
which is 25% higher than that untreated by the magnetic field. In
addition, the cake that was pretreated by the magnetic field was
softer than the untreated cake.
According to previous research (Li and Bian, 2007; Zeng et al.,
2016), the higher the solid content of sludge is, the less effective the
improvement will be, and the improvement of subsequent mechan-
ical dewatering of sludge is very small. However, our study found
that for high-concentration sludge, when the magnetic field inten-
296 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
Fig. 12. Relationship between thickness and Cr of the cake and dewatering time : (a) influence of dewatering time on Mc of cake, (b) influence of dewatering time on Cr of
cake.
sity is greater, the Mc of sludge is higher. The reason may be that
a high magnetic field intensity dissolves the EPS in the sludge, in
which larger-grained sludge is broken into smaller-grained sludge
during the magnetic field treatment. The free water is absorbed,
causing the capillary water to increase, leading to a poor dewater-
ing performance. Therefore, the magnetic field pretreatment is not
suitable for the pretreatment of high-concentration sludge.
Table 4 and Figs. 10 and 11 reveal that the pretreatment method
has an obvious influence on the dewatering performance of sludge.
Microwave and freeze-thaw pretreatments are favorable to dewa-
tering performance. The best dehydration effect was observed
when the Mc of the cake was 28.1%, the microwave treatment
time was 120 s and the microwave power was 400 W. The more
freezing-thawing cycles were applied, the better the dehydra-
tion effect. After the sludge was twice-frozen-thawed, the Mc of
the cake was 38.1%. However ultrasound and magnetic pretreat-
ments have adverse effects on the dewatering performance of
high-concentration sludge, the worst dehydration effects of the
ultrasound and magnetic pretreatment were shown by Mc values
of 80.7% and 70%, respectively.
3.6. The cost comparison of several pretreatment methods
The cost of pretreatment methods is mainly about energy con-
sumption without involving the cost of polymers. The following
energy consumption is calculated on the basis of 100 g sludge. The
energy of microwave pretreatment ranges from 12 to 84 kJ based
on different microwave power and treatment time, when the Mct
of cake reaches the minimum, the energy consumption is 48 kJ.
The energy consumption of freeze-thaw pretreatment is mainly to
freeze or thaw the sludge, the energy consumption are 43.89 kJ,
87.78 kJ respectively at the first and two freeze-thaw cycles. The
energy consumption of ultrasound pretreatment is mainly ultra-
sonic generator which power is 150 w, the energy consumption of
ultrasound pretreatment is between 9 and 54 kJ according to differ-
ent ultrasonic treatment time. The energy consumption of magnetic
field treatment is mainly high-field magnetic field generator, the
energy consumption of magnetic field pretreatment is between
96 kJ and 960 kJ according to the intensity of magnetic field. Consid-
ering comprehensively the cost and dehydration effect, microwave
pretreatment is the most suitable method.
3.7. Thickness and Cr of different dewatering times
The thickness of the cake was determined by the dewatering
time, compression pressure, sludge quality and sludge category.
Fig. 12 present the relationships between the thickness and Cr of
cakes of different sludge categories and dewatering times. The com-
pression characteristics of different sludge types are very different.
For municipal sludge, at the beginning of the dewatering process,
the filtrate flows fast, the sludge particles are relatively loose, the
sludge is greatly compressed, the thickness of cake falls and Cr
increases rapidly. As the process continues, the filtrate flows slowly
and the sludge particles become dense, the thickness of the cake
decreases and Cr increases slowly. The thickness of the cake can
reach approximately 2.4 mm, and the Cr can reach 79%. For river
sludge, in which particles are dense and its composition is not easy
to compress, as dewatering time increases the sludge thickness and
Cr change little, even remaining unchanged in the later stage. The
thickness of the cake reaches 3.7 mm, and the Cr reaches 59%.
The municipal sludge has excellent compressibility because of
its high content of organic matter, and its compressibility is bet-
ter than that of river sludge, whose major component is inorganic
matter (Rao et al., 2017a,b).
4. Conclusions
A dewatering device was designed to achieve high-dry sludge
through UHP technique with the addition of little to no CPAM.
Through a series of single-factor experiments, the relationships
between the Mc and Cr of the cake and compression pressure, pres-
surization mode, dewatering time, sludge quality, sludge category,
and pretreatment method were explored.
The Mc of the cake of municipal sludge reaches 45% under the
conditions of 12 MPa compression pressure and 60 min of dewa-
tering time. The pressurized mode has almost no influence on the
dehydration effect. To a certain extent, TOPD can reflect the dewa-
tering performance of sludge. The Mc of the cakes from municipal,
river and electroplating sludge were 39.47%, 15.32%, and 36.5%,
respectively, after 90 min of dewatering time and 12 MPa com-
pression pressure, but the dehydration efficiencies of river and
electroplating sludge were higher than that of municipal sludge.
The composition of sludge, especially organic matter content, has a
considerable influence on the Mc of sludge. Pretreatment methods
have an obvious influence on dewatering performance. Microwave
 B. Rao et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 122 (2019) 288–297
and freeze-thaw pretreatments are favorable for dewatering per-
formance. After microwave pretreatment, the Mc of a cake of
municipal sludge can reach a minimum value of 28%, whereas
ultrasound and magnetic pretreatments has adverse effects on the
dewatering performance of high-concentration sludge.
Sludge has good compressive characteristics. The Cr values of
municipal activated sludge and river sludge are 79% and 59%,
respectively. The thickness of the cake is directly related to the
Mc; the thinner the sludge cake, the lower the Mc. It is difficult to
obtain a Mc of the municipal activated sludge below 30% without
pretreatment.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the supports received for
this research from the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(51878635 and 11872353), and the support of Zhejiang Provincial
Natural Science Foundation of China (LY18E080019), and the sup-
port of Zhejiang Provincial Public Projects of China(2017C33038).
The authors would also like to acknowledge Hangzhou QiGe
wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for providing the experi-
ment sludge samples
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