Novel Multifunctional Sewage Sludge-based Adsorbents For Treatment Of Municipal Wastewater

Common adsorbents are typically developed to treat a sole targeted pollutant in wastewater. This research provides the multifunctional features of ceramsite, a sewage sludge-based adsorbents developed for removing phosphorus (P) and disinfecting pathogens in municipal wastewater. The ceramsite adsorbents were made by mixing sewage sludge with zeolite, bentonite, and magnesium oxide (MgO) powders. Batch experiment results revealed that the developed ceramsite adsorbents significantly removed phosphorus (0.45mgP/g), effectively inactivated fecal coliforms (3.7 log reduction). and reached an optimum hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 6 hours. Moreover, in the continuous filter columns, the developed adsorbents effectively removed P(0.14mgP/g: 93%) and simultaneously inactivated fecal coliforms (3.4 log reduction) in wastewater treatment plant effluent. The ratio of added MgO powder and pH values correlated well with phosphorus and pathogen removal results ⁽R² > 0.96⁾. The adsorption isotherm for TP removal by the adsorbents (S50 and S60) fitted well with the Langmuir model ⁽R² > 0.95⁾. The kinetics of TP and pathogen removal by the adsorbents followed the pseudo-second order ⁽R² > 0.97⁾ the first-order reaction models ⁽R² > 0.87⁾, respectively.