A comprehensive insight into the combined effects of Fenton's reagent and skeleton builders on sludge deep dewatering performance.

Conditioning sewage sludge with Fenton's reagent and skeleton builders has been proved to be an effective mean to achieve deep dewatering. This work aimed to give a comprehensive insight into the mechanism involved. The results show that significant synergistic effect existed between Fenton's reagent and skeleton builders. With the optimum dosage, water content of dewatered sludge cake could be reduced to 49.5±0.5%. Furthermore, raw sludge existed in the form of zoogloea and its flocs surface was plate-like. After Fenton oxidation, partial of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) was destroyed and the amounts of protein and polysaccharide dissolved in filtrate increased. Meanwhile, sludge flocs turned into smaller ones. After adding skeleton builders, constantly-changing environment promoted senescence and death of microorganism. A large area of plate-like structure disappeared, instead of which were holes. Irregular non-living things inlayed or pierced microbial cells, promoting the conversion from bound water to free water as well as further reduction of the sludge particle size. Additionally, these irregular substances could form a rigid porous structure under high pressure, which could transmit the stresses to the sludge internal parts and provide outflow channels for free water. Consequently, conditioned sludge was suitable for high pressure deep dewatering.