Hidrologia: Pesquisa Atual

Influence of Ultrasonic Treatment in Sewage Sludge

Abstract

Kavindra Kumar Kesari, Sanjay Kumar, HN Verma and J Behari

Physical methods like ultrasound, ultraviolet and nanoparticles are very useful in wastewater purification and recycling. The ultrasound irradiation in a liquid leads to the acoustic cavitation phenomenon, which can affect a number of mechanical, acoustic, chemical and biological changes in waste analysis. In present study, ultrasonic irradiation treatment technique was used to treat the sewage sludge effluent, which was collected from Delhi and another sample of pure E-coli strain was processed. Samples were treated in ultrasonic bath at 35 and 130 kHz of irradiation for different time periods of 5 min, 10 min, 20 min and 30 min including control (untreated). Treated samples were tested for different parameters, viz. bacterial cell count, chemical oxygen demand (COD), degree of disintegration COD (DDCOD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), optimum density (OD) of cells and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Result shows significant disintegration in ultrasonic treated sewage sludge and E-coli samples as compared with untreated (control). We observed an increased level of ROS and decreased bacterial population in treated samples with 35 kHz and 130 kHz of frequency. Result suggests that the ultrasonic treatment was more effective by increasing time and frequency. Study concludes that low-frequency ultrasonic bath at 130 kHz is more effective as compared to 35 kHz.