Effect on sludge disintegration by EDTA‐enhanced thermal‐alkaline treatment

Abstract Sludge disintegration is an effective pretreatment to enhance the biodegradability of sludge. At present, the thermal‐alkaline is one of the most commonly used methods, but it has a massive consumption of energy and chemical reagents. EDTA‐enhanced thermal‐alkaline treatment was used to strengthen the dewatered sludge disintegration at mid‐low temperature in this study. Results showed that the dissolving‐out quantity of soluble chemical oxygen demand and the volatile solid (VS) in residual sludge in the EDTA‐added group were 14.7% higher and 7% lower than those in control system without EDTA, respectively, indicating that EDTA addition improved the performance of sludge disintegration. The addition of EDTA loosened the floc structure and enhanced the hydrolyzability of dissolved organic matters (DOM) with a narrower distribution of the relative molecular weight. The membrane damage of microbial cells in EDTA‐added group reached 73.3% after 120 min, which was much higher than that in the control group (31.9%). EDTA contains a large number of hydrogen bond acceptors and could form hydrogen bonds with alcohols and phenols in solubilization products and DOM. It was speculated that the mechanism of EDTA‐enhanced sludge disintegration was related to the formation of hydrogen bonds between EDTA and organic matter inside and outside the cell. Practitioner points The addition of EDTA facilitated the thermal‐alkali cracking of dewatered sludge. EDTA increased the particle size of sludge and enhanced the hydrolysis of DOM. The strengthening effect mainly occurred at the beginning of TB‐EPS dissolving slowly. Hydrogen bond played important roles in the enhanced disintegration of sludge by EDTA.