Single Stage Anaerobic Digestion for Sewage Sludge Treatment

Abstract

National Institute of Technology Rourkela is one of the largest academic institutions in India with lots of people residing in its campus. Such large number of people will lead to large amount of sewage from hostels and academic areas. A sewage treatment plant has setup near V.S. Hall of Residence for the treatment of all municipal wastes from the hostels and academic areas. As a result a considerable amount of municipal sewage sludge is generated in the plant which has no use. Chemical characterization has been performed on the municipal sewage sludge so that it can be used as a domestic fertilizer. The present study involves the analysis of heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, iron, nickel, copper, zinc, calcium, lead, chromium, magnesium, aluminum, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, silicon by using the Atomic Absorption Spectrometer. The physical and chemical parameters like TOC, hardness, colour, pH, total nitrogen, fluoride has also been determined for the sewage sludge sample. Six number of samples are collected from the Sewage Treatment Plant at different times of the day to have an average data of the measured parameters. The average values of all the parameters are found out. The samples are also dried in different methods to have a comparative study.