Transfer behavior of odorous pollutants in wastewater sludge system under typical chemical conditioning processes for dewaterability enhancement

Chemical conditioning has been used for enhancing wastewater sludge dewaterability for many years, but the characteristics of odorous pollutants emission in sludge conditioning were still unclear. In this work, the transfer behavior of different odorous pollutants between air, liquid and solid phases under typical chemical conditioning processes for high-pressure dewatering was systematically investigated. The results indicated that that besides hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and ammonia (NH3), 21 kinds of volatile organic contaminants (VOCs) were identified and quantified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), while the concentrations and composition of odorous pollutants varied greatly for different conditioning processes. VOCs were composed by three main constituents including benzenes, halogeno benzene and hydrocarbons. According to mass balance analysis, about 50% of VOCs adsorbed within sludge extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) fraction. Since EPS was damaged and/or flocculation in different chemical conditioning processes, VOCs distributed in solid phase transformed into liquid phase and then released into air. The discrepancies in mass of odorous pollutants before and after chemical conditioning were likely to be related to chemical conversion under acidification, oxidation and precipitation in the presence of ferric ions.