Optimization of H2O2 dosage in microwave-H2O2 process for sludge pretreatment with uniform design method

A microwave-H2O2 process for sludge pretreatment exhibited high efficiencies of releasing organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus, but large quantities of H2O2 residues were detected. A uniform design method was thus employed in this study to further optimize H2O2 dosage by investigating effects of pH and H2O2 dosage on the amount of H2O2 residue and releases of organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus. A regression model was established with pH and H2O2 dosage as the independent variables, and H2O2 residue and releases of organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus as the dependent variables. In the optimized microwave-H2O2 process, the pH value of the sludge was firstly adjusted to 11.0, then the sludge was heated to 80°C and H2O2 was dosed at a H2O2:mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) ratio of 0.2, and the sludge was finally heated to 100°C by microwave irradiation. Compared to the microwave-H2O2 process without optimization, the H2O2 dosage and the utilization rate of H2O2 in the optimized microwave-H2O2 process were reduced by 80% and greatly improved by 3.87 times, respectively, when the H2O2:MLSS dosage ratio was decreased from 1.0 to 0.2, resulting in nearly the same release rate of soluble chemical oxygen demand in the microwave-H2O2 process without optimization at H2O2:MLSS ratio of 0.5.