Effects of particle size of zero-valent iron (ZVI) on peroxydisulfate-ZVI enhanced sludge dewaterability

The advanced oxidization process has proven to be an effective conditioning technique for the improvement of sludge dewaterability. Zero-valent iron (ZVI) is often used as the catalyst of the oxidization process. This study applied ZVI with different particle sizes to the ZVI- peroxydisulfate reactions, and investigated their effects on the improvement of sludge dewaterability. It was found that ZVI particles with smaller sizes (100 and 400 meshes) led to slightly higher enhancement of sludge dewaterability (69.1%–72%) than the larger size particles (20–40 meshes) with the reduction rate of CST by 64%. However, after the treatment, the recycle rate of larger size ZVI particles was obviously higher than the small sizes ZVI particles: 98.3% vs. 87.6–89.7%. Different surface areas of the ZVI particles with different sizes might contribute to the phenomenon. For the small ZVI particles with the sizes of 100 and 400 meshes, no obvious differences of oxidization effects and the improvements of sludge dewaterability were found between them, which might be because an oxide layer could have been formed on the surface of fine ZVI particles and led to agglomeration. According to the economical analysis, the small particles (100 and 400 meshes) of ZVI were more economically favorable for the oxidative conditioning process with ZVI-peroxydisulfate than large ZVI particles (20–40 meshes).