ABSTRACT
Sludge treatment has long become one of the most challenging problems in wastewater treatment plants (Zhang et al., 2007). As a result of the wide application and utilization of the waste activated sludge process, excess sludge presents a serious disposal problem (Neyens and Baeyens, 2003; Hao et al., 2007). The management of excess activated sludge also imposes great economic costs on the operation and maintenance of wastewater treatment plants and hence represents in itself signi›cant technical challenges (Li et al., 2008) as a results of environmental, economic, social, and legal factors (Chu et al., 2009). Many efforts have been devoted to reduce the excess sludge burden (Naddeo et al., 2009) by treatments such as digestion and dewatering. Some sludge treatment technologies include pretreatment and sludge minimization, anaerobic digestion, aerobic digestion, alkaline stabilization, composting, dewatering, drying, and innovative technologies (Fitzmorris et al., 2009). Table 13.1 lists a selected few innovative sludge pretreatment and management research that have been undertaken.
