Abstract
This article shows a laboratory parametric study carried out for optimizing the electro-dewatering (EOD) of agro-industrial sludge. The sludge dry matter reached 40% w/w after 3 hours of EOD with current density of 80 A/m2, against 20% w/w after 11 hours of mechanical compression. The electricity consumption was 0.27 kWh/kg of water removed. Another advantage of EOD lies on the depolluting effect observed. The chemical oxygen demand of sludge was decreased by 64% probably due to oxidization reactions at anode. 97% of sodium and 63% of iron contained in sludge were also transferred to the filtrate during the treatment.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support received for this research from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-08-ECOT-018-004).