The evolution of different dissolved organic matter components and release characteristics of heavy metals in leaching process from sewage sludge under simulated rain

Pollution of municipal sewage sludge with heavy metals (HMs) inevitably causes secondary contamination, threatening ecosystems and human health. Dissolved organic matters (DOM) would serve as HMs carriers or ligands, directly influencing the transport and distribution. So it is of essential importance to simultaneously evaluate the release characteristics of HMs and DOM from MSS. In this paper, we investigated leaching characteristics of HMs (Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn, Ni, and Mn) and DOM from raw sewage sludge (RSS) and lime-conditioned sewage sludge (LCSS) under simulated rain with different acidities (pH 6.5 and 2.9) via column leaching experiments. The results showed the release of HMs could be divided into two distinct stages, a rapid decreasing changes in the early stage and a slow and steady change in the later stages with a slight increase in the middle of time. At the early stage, DOM was dominated by protein-like components (tryptophan-like, tyrosine-like). As time passed, protein-like components decreased while humic-like components (fulvic acid and humic acid) increased gradually. Protein-like components showed significant positive correlations with HMs, while humic acid-like components showed strong negative correlations with them. Moreover, the leaching efficiencies of Cd, Zn and Mn at pH 2.9 was about 1.5 times higher than that at 6.5, and the fluorescence intensity of humic-like components at pH 2.9 was higher than that at pH 6.5, suggesting that acid rain accelerated the release of HMs and the humification of DOM. Compared with the RSS, the DOM of LCSS showed noticeable differences, especially an obvious increase of the fulvic acid component. And the leaching efficiencies of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Mn in LCSS were much lower than that in RSS, indicating lime treatment retarded the release of HMs. Thus, our findings will be a guide to the treatment of HMs contaminants in MSS.