Dehydration of sludge, the products of the wastewater treatment plants by means of a process of a highly efficient electroosmosis: this is the ELECTROSLUDGE project of which 60% is financed in the framework of LIFE Programme of the European Union.
The technology elaborated by CAP Group along with the Technical University of Milan and AST System Automation, allows processing urban sludge from the wastewater treatment plants to receive up to 30% of dry content.
Such weight reduction allows for favoring the final disposal, reducing the management costs, and above all is beneficial to the environment. We talk about it with Alessandro Russo, President of CAP Group.
The management of wastewater is Italy’s Achilles tendon. Could this technology by an important solution for the segment and would it be easy to implement it into the current water network?
The sludge management is definitely one of the important issues in the treatment management (accounts for about 30% of its overall management costs), and as a result, putting in place of a technology that allows for water removal and reducing the volume of sludge to be disposed of is of crucial importance. The inclusion of the device into the sludge treatment line of a treatment plant is similar to the one that is currently used, and it also improves its efficiency without the need of significant structural changes.
How much time will it take to begin to manufacture such a device?
The research and in-field experimentation phase took 3 years and thus it can be assumed that manufacturing will begin no sooner than in 2 years.
What is the course of dehydrated sludge? Does it entail any harm to the environment? Is it reusable?
The “course”, including possible reuse, depends mainly of the sludge features rather than on the proposed process that improves the dehydration performance, and the application of that technology may contribute to reduce the environmental impact of treatment.
The project also refers to the process efficiency. Could you please describe this aspect in detail?
It aims to improve the efficiency of separation of water from the solid part in respect of the currently applied technologies. The new process should cut the operational costs and increase the dry content entailing the reduction of volumes intended for the final disposal.
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