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Activated Sludge

 

What is Activated Sludge?

As the glossary stated, activated sludge is sludge that is "activated" by under going some sort of clumping together and become biologically active forming a bacterial culture. This is usually intentional and part of a biological wastewater treatment process and typically is carried out or occurs in tanks. Activated sludge can be extended with aeration leading to what is called extended aeration. Activated sludge is the primary process of most municipal sewage treatment taking various forms in various processes.

Why Use Activated Sludge?

It's all part of breaking down the sludge or treating wastewater to get the solids together and out. Why treat sewage? To manage the waste and render it more usable or disposable.

There is a growing understanding that many sewages can be re-input back into various production systems, typically agriculture, as a fertilizer. This is part of the Industrial Ecology way of thinking, where there is no waste, just a continuous circle of use that never ends.

Once activated, the sludge is much more prone to digestion and reduction leaving behind fewer solids or organic content. This process was developed fairly early in the 20th Century in England, misnamed after "activated" or "active carbon" or carbon that has become very porous.

How Is Activated Sludge "Activated"?

Activated sludge pretty much occurs naturally, we just concentrate and help it along with the addition of extra oxygen (extended aeration) and mixing in bacteria for a "liquor" or "mixed liquor" that becomes very biologically active. The bacteriological activity digests the organic solids reducing the sludge content of the effluent. Some of the sludge is used to seed the influent to trigger the next round of activation.

What Happens to the Activated Sludge When It's Done?

Once all of the organic matter has been reduced as much as possible the solids are removed as needed to keep the "food" content from getting to a point where the bacterial activity drops. These solids "waste activated sludge" can be treated further, reused, or disposed of after sludge dewatering or sludge drying.

More Activated Sludge from Wiki...

 

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