The Treatment of Antibiotic Excess Sludge via Catalytic Wet Oxidation with Cu-Ce/γ-Al2O3 and the Production of a Carbon Source

In the present study, the effectiveness of catalytic wet oxidation triggered by using Cu-Ce/γ-Al2O3 to degrade antibiotic excess sludge was investigated, during which some small molecule carboxylic acids were produced, which are valuable in biological wastewater treatment as an organic carbon source. The influence of reaction parameters on the degradation efficiency was explored through single-factor and orthogonal experiments, including catalyst amount, reaction temperature and time, and oxygen supply amount. The results illustrated that the treatment system can achieve 81.2% COD and 93.8% VSS removal rates under optimized reaction conditions. Carboxylic acids produced after the sludge degradation mainly included acetic acid, propanoic acid, etc. The results of wastewater biological treatment experiments exhibited that the degraded solution after catalytic wet oxidation has potential to be used as a carbon source to meet the demand of biological treatment, which helps the removal of COD and TN. This work confirms the effectiveness of catalyst for enhancing antibiotic excess sludge treatment, which provided a new idea for the rational disposal of antibiotic excess sludge.