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Liming Pretreatment Reduces Sludge Build-Up on

the Dryer Wall during Thermal Drying

Huan Li , Shuxin Zou & Chenchen Li

To cite this article: Huan Li , Shuxin Zou & Chenchen Li (2012) Liming Pretreatment Reduces
Sludge Build-Up on the Dryer Wall during Thermal Drying, Drying Technology, 30:14, 1563-1569,
DOI: 10.1080/07373937.2012.697947

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 Drying Technology, 30: 15631569, 2012
Copyright # 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0737-3937 print=1532-2300 online
DOI: 10.1080/07373937.2012.697947
Liming Pretreatment Reduces Sludge Build-Up on the Dryer
Wall during Thermal Drying
Huan Li, Shuxin Zou, and Chenchen Li
Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China
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In the course of sludge thermal drying, the sludge that sticks to the
heated surfaces of drying equipment causes deterioration of drying
efciency and safety. The ability of alkaline pretreatment to reduce
sludge build-up on dryer walls during convective drying processes
was investigated. The sludge build-up was measured as the residual
mass on an iron plate after parts of the sludge were scraped off the
plate; the device used simulated the scraping process in drying
equipment. The results showed that the sludge build-up on the plate
increased at rst and then decreased as the sludge water content
decreased during thermal drying. The maximum amount of sludge
build-up occurred when the sludge water content was about
5560%. Liming pretreatment enhanced sludge cohesion, hydrolyzed
adhesive organic substances, increased the inorganic mineral content
of the sludge and, accordingly, reduced sludge build-up. When the
dose of Ca(OH)2 was 5% of dry solids (5% DS), the sludge build-up
was almost negligible and the average drying rate improved by about
30%. CaO pretreatment was also very effective in preventing sludge
build-up, but its effect on the sludge drying rate was not obvious at the
same dosage. Compared with Ca(OH)2 and CaO, NaOH did not
reduce sludge build-up effectively or improve the sludge drying rate.
Keywords Adhesion; Drying; Liming pretreatment; Sewage
sludge
INTRODUCTION
Excess sludge is one of the main by-products of
wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and it is usually
rst concentrated and mechanically dewatered. The water
content of dewatered sludge cakes commonly ranges
between 75% and 85%. This high water content makes
the dewatered sludge unsuitable for direct landll, inciner-
ation, or composting without pretreatment. Hence, sludge
drying constitutes an essential pretreatment after mechan-
ical dewatering. Decreasing the water content to below
10% reduces the mass and volume of sludge and thereby
reduces the costs of storage, handling, and transport, as
well as transforms sludge into an acceptable combustible
material. Furthermore, if the drying temperature is suf-
ciently high, the dried sludge produced is a pathogen-free,
stabilized material.[1]
Correspondence: Huan Li, Graduate School at Shenzhen,
Tsinghua University, L-205B, Tsinghua Campus, University Town,
Shenzhen 518055, China; E-mail: li.huan@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn
1563
Much attention has been paid to improving drying
efciency, decreasing energy consumption, and ensuring
production security during sludge thermal drying.[25]
Sludge build-up on the inside walls of drying equipment
during sludge thermal drying[69] is another concern. Sludge
adhesion decreases the efciency of heat transfer, reduces
the life of drying equipment, and increases the risk of
explosion due to sludge over-drying.[10] When the sludge
water content is decreased to some degree, the physical
state of the sludge changes from a liquid suspension to a
cohesive=adhesive paste (sticky zone) just prior to granu-
lation.[9,1113] In the sticky zone, sludge turns into a paste,
and it then easily sticks onto the inside walls of drying equip-
ment. The total sludge solids that remain on dryer walls are
the result of both adhesion and cohesion. Adhesion arises
during the contact of the very rst layer of sludge with the
dryer walls, whereas cohesion occurs as a function of the
internal properties of the sludge. The organic fraction and
water content of the sludge are recognized as intrinsic fac-
tors impacting the sludges physical consistency as demon-
strated by Ruiz et al.[14,15] and Peeters et al.[9,13] Recently,
Peeters proposed a mechanism for the existence of the
sludges sticky phase during the course of drying in relation
to the physical sludge properties.[9]
A number of methods have been used to prevent sludge
build-up on dryer walls. A portion of already dried sludge
is frequently back-mixed with raw sludge to bypass the
sticky zone.[16] The returned dried sludge is generally one
to two times the weight of the raw sludge. However,
considerable energy has to be consumed to reheat the
returned dried sludge and blend it with the raw sludge.
The treatment capacity of the drying equipment is accord-
ingly reduced. Special mechanical accessory devices, such
as paddles and scrapers, are also used in drying equipment
to remove the sludge from the heating surfaces or inside
walls. These accessory devices, which increase the com-
plexity of drying equipment as well as the investment and
maintenance costs, cannot completely eliminate the sludge
adhesion phenomenon.
Researchers have found a few new methods for prevent-
ing or mitigating sludge build-up on dryer walls during
 1564 LI ET AL.
thermal drying. Ma et al.[17] used a polarized electric eld
to reduce sludge adhesion through contact drying of a
sludge cake deposited on a heated metal plate serving as
the cathode. Peeters et al.[9,18] found the intrinsic stickiness
of sludge could be reduced by adding pure polyaluminium
chloride (PACl) to waste sludge. The addition of alkaline
chemicals, mostly lime, as a stabilization method is widely
used. Liming raises the sludge pH. At a pH of 12 or higher,
pathogens and microorganisms can be either inactivated or
destroyed, and odor can also be reduced when adequate
mixing and sufciently long contact times are realized.[19]
The addition of lime also contributes to increased sludge
dryness due to the lime hydration reaction. For limed
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sludge, drying is also a valid way to obtain a stable, granu-
lar, and marketable product to use as an agricultural soil
modier.[20] However, studies to date on the inuence of
liming treatment on sludge thermal drying have been very
limited.[2023]
Because of a lack of knowledge on liming pretreatment
for sludge drying, this work was aimed at studying the
effects of liming pretreatment on sludge build-up on dryer
walls and also on drying efciency during thermal drying.
Systematic experiments on sludge thermal drying were
conducted under conditions of convective heating to inves-
tigate the characteristics of sludge build-up on dryer walls.
The effects of liming pretreatments were investigated,
based on the comparison of Ca(OH)2, CaO, and NaOH
pretreatments.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sludge Samples
The sewage sludge used in this study was collected from
two WWTPs. In plant A, a biological aerated lter process
was used to clean the wastewater. The excess sludge was
thickened, conditioned with polyacrylamide (PAM), and
dewatered by centrifugation. The water content of the
dewatered sludge (sludge A) was 73.9% and the organic
content was 51.5%. In plant B, an anaerobic-anoxic-oxic
process was applied and the excess sludge was thickened,
conditioned with PAM, and dewatered by belt mechanical
compression. The water content of the dewatered sludge
(sludge B) was 83.6% and the organic content was 61.8%.
Sludge water content and organic content were measured
according to standard methods.[24] Sludge A was used for
liming pretreatment and thermal drying experiments.
Sludge B was used for comparison with sludge A during
thermal drying without pretreatment.
Sludge Liming Pretreatment
The alkaline chemicals used in the experiments were
Ca(OH)2, CaO, and NaOH. The sludge samples and
alkaline chemicals were agitated for 10 min in a 1-L plastic
beaker with a double spiral stirrer at a controlled speed of
240 rpm. The doses of the alkaline reagents were 1% to 5%
of the sludge dry solids (DS) by weight (1% DS, 3% DS, 5%
DS). For comparison, the sludge samples without alkaline
pretreatment were also stirred for 10 minutes.
Sludge Drying Experiments
Before the sludge drying experiments, the sludge sam-
ples were spread on a square iron plate (10 cm
10 cm

0.09 cm), with the help of a plastic circular frame (
9 cm
0.5 cm). About 35 g of the sludge sample were added
to the plastic frame on the iron plate, then the top surface
of the sludge was manually planished with a plastic plate
and, nally, the plastic frame was removed. The sludge
cake remaining on the iron plate had a diameter of 9 cm
and a thickness of 0.5 cm. The surface roughness of the
iron plate was measured with a 3D white-light interfering
prolometer (MicroXAM), made by KLA-Tencor,
U.S.A., and was found to be 0.8 mm.
To dry the sludge samples, the plate with the sludge cake
was put into an air-drying oven and convectively heated
under 120 C isothermal conditions. After a certain drying
time, the iron plate was taken out for measurement of
the sludge water content and the sludge build-up on the
iron plate. Next, the plate was cleaned for the following
test. A series of tests were carried out with different drying
times and, hence, a range of different sludge water
contents.
Measurement of the Sludge Build-Up on the Dryer Walls
The method of measuring the sludge build-up on the
iron plate simulated the scraping process used in drying
equipment. Once the sludge was dried to some degree,
the iron plate was turned upside down so that the plate sur-
face with adherent sludge was facing downward (Fig. 1 and
FIG. 1. A schematic drawing of the experimental device.
 LIMING PRETREATMENT
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FIG. 2. The photograph of the experimental device.
Fig. 2). One edge of the plate was supported and xed by a
clamp that could be rotated around its center. The opposite
edge of the plate was supported with a stainless blade. The
blade was perpendicular to the plate and it was moved
horizontally slowly and evenly from one edge of the plate
to the opposite edge. During this process, the sludge stuck
onto the iron plate was partly scraped off. The residual
sludge on the plate was weighed and taken as the nal mass
of sludge build-up. Because the iron plate could be rotated
as the blade moved horizontally, the scraping force was
mainly dependent on the mass of the iron plate (65 g)
and the sludge cake (35 g). In each test, the scraping force
changed slightly because some sludge would detach from
the iron plate, but the force was approximately the same
for different tests. By doing so, the sludge build-up mass
could be compared under different drying conditions.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Characteristics of Sludge Build-Up on the Plate
During the drying processes, including the mentioned
scraping procedure, the mass of sludge build-up on the iron
plate varied with the sludge water content as depicted in
Fig. 3. The observed dependency (Fig. 3) of the raw sludge
stickiness on the sludge water content is comparable as
demonstrated by Peeters et al.[13] When the water content
of the sludge was higher than 70%, only a minor amount
1565
FIG. 3. The mass build-up of sludge A, sludge B, and sludge A with
Ca(OH)2 pretreatment on the iron plate during thermal drying (the lines
are to guide the eye).
of sludge remained on the iron plate because the large
amount of water reduced the adhesive forces between the
sludge and the plate surface. When the sludge water con-
tent decreased further during the drying process, the
amount of solids build-up on the iron plate (dryer wall)
increased. With decreasing sludge water content, more
adhesive substances were in contact with the plate surface.
According to Peeters,[9] the increasing stickiness of drying
sludge can be attributed to the increasing viscosity of the
biopolymers (EPS, extracellular polymeric substances sur-
rounding the micro-organisms in the activated sludge) as
a result of the lower water content. The resulting enhanced
adhesive force caused more sludge to remain on the plate
after the scraping of the blade. When the water content
of the sludge was about 5560%, the amount of sludge
build-up on the plate reached its maximum. According to
the adsorption theory of adhesives,[25] this adhesion could
mainly be attributed to intermolecular forces and, there-
fore, sufcient contact of the adhesive and adherend is
considered to be very important. Water can wet the surface
of a metallic adherend and enhance the contact of the
adhesive and adherend surfaces. Hence, the adhesive force
was enhanced by sufcient interface inltration when the
water content reached 55-60%. Simultaneously, cohesive
forces also increased when the sludge became a sticky
paste.[11] Thus, more sludge remained on the iron plate
after the plate was scraped. Beyond the range of 55-60%
water content, where the sludge under study behaves as
the most stickiest, the sludge build-up on the iron plate
was clearly reduced. Due to the further water removal from
the sludge, the spreadability of the sludge onto the iron
plate (i.e., the dryer wall) was reduced, more voids occurred
 1566 LI ET AL.
at the interface of the sludge and the plate, and the
adhesive forces decreased sharply.[9] When the water con-
tent of the sludge was nally at about 30%, the dried sludge
was easily scraped off the plate surface.
In addition to the adhesive force, sludge cohesion is
another factor determining the amount of sludge build-up
on the plate during the scraping processes under the experi-
mental conditions. Sludge adhesion is the rst essential
condition for sludge build-up, as it provides a surface layer
of sludge on the plate. Sludge cohesive forces are internal
forces that promote the accumulation of additional layers
of sludge on the surface layer, and they can thereby cause
more sludge to remain on the plate (i.e., the dryer wall).
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The sludge water content and adhesive organic substances
are also key factors for sludge cohesion during thermal
drying. A suitable water content allows sufcient contact
between sludge adhesive substances and can enhance the
cohesive forces, whereas a water content level that is too
high makes the adhesive substances move away from each
other. As well as organic occulants from the dewatering
processes, proteins and polysaccharides are recognized as
the main adhesive substances,[2628] and they are about
7080 wt.% of the total extracellular polymeric substances
(EPS) in sludge.[2931] Obviously, more adhesive substances
can lead to a higher cohesive force and more sludge
build-up on the plate. The inuence of adhesive substances
can be found by comparison of sludge A and B (Fig. 3).
The organic content of sludge A was signicantly lower
than that of sludge B, which generally meant that the
content of adhesive substances in sludge A was also lower.
Accordingly, the mass of sludge A build-up on the plate
was less under the same drying conditions. Considering
the origin of sludge A was different from sludge B, their
drying behaviors were possibly also impacted by other
characteristics,[14] such as the different compositions of
their organic fractions.
Effects of Ca(OH)2 Pretreatment
To avoid the build-up of sludge on the dryer wall after
scraping, it is necessary to reduce the adhesive force
between the sludge and the dryer wall. The degradation
of adhesive substances under thermal alkaline treatment
and the increase in inorganic mineral substances can both
reduce sludge adhesion. Thus, Ca(OH)2 pretreatment was
proposed and tested for sludge A (Fig. 3). During the
thermal drying of the sludge pretreated with 1% Ca(OH)2,
the mass of sludge build-up on the iron plate increased at
rst and then decreased with decreasing water content of
the sludge. The maximum sludge build-up occurred at a
water content of about 60%. The variation in the residual
sludge mass was similar with that during the thermal dry-
ing of the raw sludge A. With an increasing Ca(OH)2 dose
(3% and 5%), the amount of residual sludge on the iron
plate clearly decreased. Compared with the drying process
without pretreatment, the residual sludge was reduced by
90%, and it was almost negligible when the sludge was pre-
treated with 5% DS Ca(OH)2.
The efciency of sludge thermal drying was also
improved with an increasing dose of Ca(OH)2 (Fig. 4).
When the dose of Ca(OH)2 was 5% DS, the time spent
on drying the sludge to a water content of 10% could be
reduced by 45 min. Under thermal drying conditions, alka-
line pretreatment can disintegrate sludge zooglea, or even
cells, and expose the inner water. This makes the water
easier to release from the sludge. An increase in the Ca2
dose was also helpful for sludge dewatering. The divalent
metal ions (Ca2, Mg2) play an important role in linking
different sludge particles, whereas the monovalent metal
ions (Na, K) can replace Ca2 or Mg2 and break up
the structure of sludge ocs.[31,32] Hence, the increased
Ca2 content resulting from the addition of Ca(OH)2 can
enhance the structure of sludge ocs and improve sludge
dewaterability. The inorganic mineral content, which
increased under the experimental conditions, was certainly
helpful for sludge dewatering. Hence, the liming pretreat-
ment with 5% DS Ca(OH)2 was conducive to both reducing
sludge adhesion and improving drying efciency.
Analysis of the Causes of Liming Effects
Under thermal drying conditions, alkaline treatment can
cause disintegration of sludge zooglea and microbial cells,
the release of the inner organic substances and enhance
organic polymer hydrolysis.[33] Accordingly, thermal
alkaline treatment is sometimes used as a disintegration
pretreatment before sludge dewatering[34] or anaerobic
digestion.[35] When the higher molecular weight organics,
including polysaccharides and proteins, are decomposed
FIG. 4. The effect of Ca(OH)2 pretreatment on the drying efciency of
sludge A during convective thermal drying.
 LIMING PRETREATMENT
into lower molecular weight compounds, the levels of
adhesive substances in the sludge decrease and sludge
build-up on the plate are accordingly reduced. On the other
hand, the increase of inorganic mineral substances in the
sludge can contribute to reducing the stickiness of the
sludge and improving its drying performance. The inor-
ganic substances include CaCO3, generated from Ca(OH)2
and CO2, and hydrated calcium silicate and hydrated cal-
cium aluminate, generated from Ca(OH)2, active silica,
and alumina.[36] These mineral substances can change the
sludge texture and thereby increase sludge cohesion, which
can partly counterbalance the sludge adhesiveness.[20]
In order to compare the effects of thermal alkaline
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hydrolysis and increased inorganic content, NaOH pre-
treatment and CaO pretreatment were both used for sludge
thermal drying. Compared with Ca(OH)2, NaOH provides
a stronger alkaline condition in the sludge, which enhances
the thermal alkaline hydrolysis of organic substances. On
the other hand, the increased level of inorganic mineral
substances resulting from NaOH pretreatment was less
than that from Ca(OH)2. CaO pretreatment also created
alkaline conditions, but these were weaker than those using
NaOH pretreatment. As CaO has a lower molecular weight
than Ca(OH)2, the added CaO leads to a higher inorganic
mineral content than Ca(OH)2 if their doses are the same
weight percentage of sludge dry solids. The sludge tempera-
ture rise resulting from the CaO hydration reaction was
almost negligible with thermal drying at 120 C. Thus, the
two mechanisms of thermal alkaline hydrolysis and
increased inorganic content were able to be evaluated by
comparison of NaOH, CaO, and Ca(OH)2 pretreatments.
The inuences of NaOH and CaO pretreatments on
sludge adhesion are shown in Fig. 5. The NaOH
FIG. 5. The mass build-up of sludge A with CaO or NaOH pretreatment
on the iron plate during convective thermal drying (the lines are to guide
the eye).
1567
FIG. 6. The effects of CaO and NaOH pretreatments on the drying
efciency of sludge A during convective thermal drying.
pretreatment reduced sludge build-up on the plate during
the subsequent thermal drying, and this decrement in
sludge build-up became larger when the NaOH dose was
increased. However, the decrement was less than that when
using a Ca(OH)2 pretreatment at the same dose of 3% DS
or 5% DS. CaO pretreatment caused a much greater
decrease in sludge build-up on the dryer wall than NaOH
pretreatment, and was also better than Ca(OH)2 pretreat-
ment at the 1% and 3% doses (depicted in Fig. 3). With
regard to their effects on reducing sludge build-up on the
plate, the ranking of the three chemicals was CaO >
Ca(OH)2 > NaOH. It was deduced that the increase in
inorganic mineral substances played a more important role
in reducing adherent sludge compared with the thermal
alkaline hydrolyses of adhesive substances.
The effects of NaOH and CaO pretreatments on sludge
drying efciency are shown in Fig. 6. Increased doses (3%
and 5%) improved the sludge drying efciency. The posi-
tive effect of the addition of CaO on sludge drying is also
demonstrated by Huron et al.[20] They found that CaO
pretreatment with a dose of 19% DS reduced the drying
time by 25% when the sludge reached 90% DS. However,
the improvement in sludge drying efciency was not obvi-
ous compared with that of Ca(OH)2 pretreatment, as
depicted in Fig. 4. When the dose of CaO and NaOH
was 1% DS, the drying efciency was even lower than that
without any pretreatment. On the whole, Ca(OH)2 pre-
treatment was the most effective for the improvement of
sludge thermal drying.
CONCLUSIONS
Water content is the key factor impacting sludge
build-up on dryer walls (experimentally simulated with an
iron plate) during thermal drying. The mass of sludge
 1568
build-up increased when the sludge water content decrea-
sed from 80% to 60%, reached its maximum when the water
content was about 5560%, and nally decreased to about
zero when the water content decreased to lower than 30%.
The adhesive and cohesive characteristics of sludge organic
polymers are the main reasons for sludge build-up on dryer
walls, and sludge with a high organic content stuck more
readily on the dryer wall.
Alkaline pretreatment hydrolyses sludge adhesive sub-
stances under thermal drying conditions, increases sludge
inorganic mineral content and, accordingly, reduces sludge
build-up on the dryer wall during thermal drying. Of the
three alkalis used for pretreatment (Ca(OH)2, CaO, and
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NaOH), Ca(OH)2, and CaO were more effective in reduc-
ing sludge build-up on the dryer wall than NaOH. More-
over, Ca(OH)2 pretreatment increased the sludge drying
efciency by 30% when the dose of Ca(OH)2 was 5% DS.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was nancially supported by Shenzhen
science and technology research and development fund
(JC201005270309A), the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (51008174), and the fund of the Key Lab-
oratory for Solid Waste Management and Environment
Safety, Ministry of Education of China (SWMES201011).
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