Influence of Effluent Quality from Sludge Dewatering on Electricity Consumption

During the dewatering process, centrate is produced, which is returned to the beginning of the technological system. The quality of the resulting centrate, and therefore the size of the returned load of pollutants, affects the demand for electricity in the process of biological wastewater treatment. The following study presents the results of centrate quality tests at five wastewater treatment plants located in Poland. The dependence between suspended solids content and ammonia and COD concentrations in the centrate was determined. It was estimated that an increase in the overall suspended solids leads to an increase in COD by about 1.15 kgCOD/kgTSS. No correlation was found between TSS concentration and ammonia. It was calculated that the complete elimination of suspended solids from the sludge would reduce the electricity consumption for all five objects by about 535 MWh/y.