Influence of Excess Biological Sludge Disintegration Processes on Pharmaceutical Compounds, Hormones and PAH Concentrations from Anaerobic Stabilized Sludge

This paper shows the influence of certain biological sludge disintegration processes over the concentrations of emerging pollutants, including classes of structurally different compounds such as pharmaceuticals, hormones and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from anaerobic stabilized sludge. Three processes for sludge disintegration were tested: ultrasonic, ultrasonic + electrokinetic and ultrasonic + electrokinetic + microbubble generation. Activated sludge from an urban wastewater treatment plant was used in the experiments. Both pharmaceuticals from the analgesic and antipyretic classes, as well as the identified hormones (estrone) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), were sensitive to the disintegration processes applied, the experimental results showing the decrease of their concentration correlated with the increase of the disintegration energy.