Prof. Bo Bian published a research paper in Chemosphere(2018(205) :260-266)

Chemical sludge is derived from physicochemical water treatment process of chemical industrial wastewater, which owns higher toxicity and poorer biodegradability than conventional municipal sewage sludge. shortcomings of the methods lie in the high energy-consumption of thermal means and high economic cost of acidification, respectively. A cost-effective approach for pretreatment of chemical sludge for further dewatering, based on the idea of “using waste to treat waste”, is provided. It is a coupled heating/acidification pretreatment method, where waste sulfuric acid is employed and relatively low temperatures (< 100 ^oC) is applied. Under the optimal conditions (reaction time: 30 min; temperature: 90 ^oC waste acid dosage: 0.17 g/(g dried sludge). Detailed mechanism of the pretreatment for dewatering is investigated that both heating and acidification generate disintegration of cells in sludge, giving rise to more organic matters released into solution, and more bound water turning into free water. Meantime, the released organic polymers flocculate sludge particles, further accelerating the solid-liquid separation.

Link：

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653518307690