The primary function of water treatment facilities is to clean and purify water, removing solid waste and other pollutants so that the water may be safely released back into the environment, or used for tasks such as irrigation. A challenge inherent to water treatment is the abundance of solid waste, which can be both difficult and expensive to dispose of.
To answer the question of what to do with all this solid waste, a process known as sludge dewatering was developed. But exactly what is sludge dewatering? And how does it improve water treatment operations? Let’s take a closer look.
Sludge Dewatering 101
Sludge dewatering may be narrowly defined as the effort to minimize solid waste by volume, making it easier to dispose of in a cost-effective way.
Consider that the water treatment process involves both liquid and solid waste. The liquid is heavy and takes up a lot of volume, which also means that it’s quite difficult and expensive to get rid of. The sludge dewatering process involves removing the liquid, resulting in high-fiber, solid cakes. These cakes of solid waste are quite a bit lighter and take up less room. As such, they are much easier to dispose of.
The term sludge denotes the semi-solid slurry that results from water treatment processes. It’s through the dewatering method that this slurry is reduced to something dry and less messy.
Benefits of Sludge Dewatering
There are a number of benefits to the sludge dewatering process, a few of which we have hinted at already. Some of the primary advantages of sludge dewatering include:
- Reduction of waste volume. The dewatering process is all about making waste smaller, both in terms of its weight and in terms of the space it occupies, all so that it’s easier to manage and less costly to dispose of.
- Lowered cost of transportation. Along those lines, dry, high-solid cakes are much easier to manage, and can be stored and transported at a much smaller expense. Through the dewatering process, water treatment companies can save a significant amount of money.
- Less risk of environmental incidents. When liquid waste or slurry is transported, the risk of leaking and spilling is fairly high. Turning that waste into a high-solid cake can reduce that risk to almost zero.
- Easier wastewater recycling. Something else to keep in mind is that, once solid waste is totally removed from wastewater, that water can then be more easily reused to produce steam power, to irrigate dry farmlands, or in a range of other industrial applications.
- Automation is easy. Finally, note that the sludge dewatering process is relatively easy to automate, meaning that water treatment facilities can practice dewatering with minimal hassle and maximum efficiency.
Find Out More About Dewatering Equipment
For success in sludge dewatering, it’s pivotal to have the right equipment. That’s where P&H Senesac comes into play. Our company has long been at the vanguard of sludge dewatering technology, and we’d love to tell you more about the easy-to-deploy equipment we provide. Contact us whenever you’re ready to chat.