Application of activated carbon induced ballasted flocculation for improving activated sludge settleability

Abstract

The effects of activated carbon originated Ballasted Flocculant (BF) on the settleability of activated sludge and the recovery of BF by Hydro-cyclone (HC) were analyzed experimentally. Two kinds of BF (M-I: 125-250 μm, M-II: 250-425 μm in dia.) and three kinds of activated sludges with different SS concentration (2,300-7,100 mg/L) were applied for this study. With the dosage variation of BF from 0.14 to 1.3 g-BF/g-SS, we could obtain 24-31% improvement in SV30 (Sludge Volume after 30min sedimentation) for the lowest SS concentration sludge (2,300 mg/L). Whereas the SV30 improvement was much higher as 44-48% for the highest SS concentration sludge (7,100 mg/L). The settling characteristics of the sludge with BF followed Vesilind model the best among three models (Vesilind, Takacs and Cho model). HC could effectively separate BF with the separation efficiency of 70-90% and over 95% separation efficiency could be obtained when the HC was applied twice.