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Sewage Sludge-based Adsorbents: A Review of

Their Production, Properties and Use in Water
Treatment Applications

Article in Water Research · April 2009

DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2009.02.038 · Source: PubMed

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4 authors, including:

K.M. Smith Geoffrey David Fowler

Imperial College London Imperial College London
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 water research 43 (2009) 2569–2594

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Review

Sewage sludge-based adsorbents: A review of their

production, properties and use in water treatment
applications

K.M. Smith, G.D. Fowler*, S. Pullket, N.J.D. Graham

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

article info abstract

Article history: The imposition of more stringent legislation governing the disposal and utilisation of
Received 21 November 2008 sewage sludge, coupled with the growth in its generation and the loss of traditionally
Received in revised form accepted disposal routes, has prompted a drive for alternative uses for sewage sludge. One
25 February 2009 option that exhibits especial promise, due to its potential to valorise the sludge, is the
Accepted 28 February 2009 conversion of the sludge into adsorbents. This paper seeks to review the published
Published online 10 March 2009 research in this field: it covers the means of production, the characteristics and the
potential applications of sewage sludge-based adsorbents (SBAs). The literature has indi-
Keywords: cated that chemical activation utilising alkali metal hydroxides is the most effective
Sewage sludge technique for producing high surface area SBAs. In addition, acid washing is highly
Activated carbon effective at raising the BET surface area of SBAs, especially when coupled with physical
Adsorbent activation. Due to their relatively low microporosity, the phenol uptake of SBAs produced
Waste recovery by physical activation is low, but through a combination of their favourable surface
Reuse chemistry and relatively high mesoporosity, the best of these adsorbents can attain high
uptakes of organic dyes. The SBAs produced by carbonisation, through their high cation
exchange capacity, generally exhibit a high metal cation capacity. For further research, the
following investigations are recommended: the utilisation of alternative chemical activa-
tion reagents; the optimisation of the most effective chemical activation techniques; the
combined utilisation of different activation and surface chemistry modification techniques
to produce application-specific adsorbents.
ª 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2570
1.1. The disposal of sewage sludge, legislation and the need for valorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2570
1.2. Sewage sludge: a definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2570
1.3. The composition of sewage sludge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2571
1.4. Activated carbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2571
1.5. Sewage sludge-based adsorbents (SBAs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2572

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 20 7594 5973; fax: þ44 20 7594 1511.
E-mail addresses: kmsmith@imperial.ac.uk (K.M. Smith), g.fowler@imperial.ac.uk (G.D. Fowler), sp703@imperial.ac.uk (S. Pullket),
n.graham@imperial.ac.uk (N.J.D. Graham).
0043-1354/$ – see front matter ª 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.watres.2009.02.038
2590 water research 43 (2009) 2569–2594
secondary, municipal sewage sludge, in the aerated vessel of
an activated sludge process. In accordance with its lower
surface area and microporosity, the SBA exhibited a lower
phenol than a commercial activated carbon in batch tests.
However, in the PACT process, its performance matched that
of the commercial carbon (in terms of its ability to lower the
phenol concentration and the chemical oxygen demand (COD)
of the plant outlet). This outcome was thought to be a conse-
quence of biomass growth on the carbons, which would
obscure any differences in internal porosity.
4.7. Miscellaneous: benzoic acid, phosphates, COD, CCl4
As shown in Table 11, the performance of SBAs in other
aspects of adsorbate treatment has been strongest, relative to
commercial activated carbons, for chemical oxygen demand
(COD), chromaticity colour removal rate (CCRR) and phos-
phate removal rate (Yu and Zhong, 2006). The SBAs’ superior
performance was ascribed by Yu and Zhong (2006) to their
relatively high mesoporosity, which facilitated the adsorption
of large organic molecules. Accordingly, Yu and Zhong (2006)
found that the higher carbon content of SBA produced from
biochemical sludge resulted in their outperforming SBAs
produced from sewage sludge.
Table 11 also shows that a SBA produced by activation with
ZnCl2 attained a higher uptake of aqueous phase CCl4 than
a commercial activated carbon, despite having a BET surface
area that was 45% lower. Chen et al. (2002) attributed this to
the SBA’s high silicon content (7.91 wt.%), which could have
reduced its polarity, hence raising the affinity for non-polar
adsorbates. A further factor may have been the SBA’s higher
mesoporosity (the average pore diameters of the SBA and the
commercial carbon were, respectively, 3.4 nm and 2.7 nm).
The SBA that exhibited the highest benzoic acid uptake
was, as shown in Table 11, produced from non-limed sludge
carbonised at 1000  C. The SBA had, correspondingly, the
highest BET surface area of the SBAs analysed by Rio et al.
(2004). However, a limed sludge carbonised at 600  C exhibited
the highest benzoic acid uptake per unit surface area. This
suggested that the surface chemistry was also a significant
parameter.
5. Conclusions and recommendations for
future work
This literature review has determined that sewage sludge is
a highly promising feedstock for the production of adsorbents,
and its conversion represents an attractive alternative to
existing sludge disposal and reuse routes. However, the
properties of the adsorbents have been shown to be heavily
dependent upon both the production/conversion method and
the nature of the sludge itself. Chemical activation using alkali
metal hydroxide reagents, especially KOH, was found to be the
most effective technique for producing high BET surface area
SBAs, with areas in excess of 1800 m2/g being reported. Car-
bonisation and physical activation, on the other hand, did not
yield high surface areas as a consequence of the high inor-
ganic content of sludges. However, this drawback has been
shown to be surmountable, firstly, by the dilution of the
sludge with low ash, carbonaceous materials and secondly, by
HCl washing, which by its partial dissolution serves to lower
the inorganic content. In many cases, the strong adsorption
performance of SBAs owes much to the inorganic fraction,
which has a high cation exchange capacity, thereby enabling
the realisation of high uptakes of dyes and metal cations.
The pH and accordingly, the surface chemistry, of SBAs
have been shown to be controllable through the selection and
manipulation of the activation regime, thus facilitating
enhancement of the SBAs’ adsorbate uptake. Carbonisation,
due to its elimination/removal of the acidic surface functional
groups, is an effective means of producing highly alkaline
adsorbents, especially when the sludge has been limed and
thus is rich in calcium compounds.
It has yet to be demonstrated that SBAs can attain high
uptakes of phenol. This pertains to the low microporosities of
the SBAs tested thus far. However, the high surface area SBAs
produced by techniques including chemical activation, HCl
washing and mixing with low ash, carbonaceous materials
may perform more favourably. Tailoring of the surface
chemistry is also an avenue that merits investigation for low
surface area SBAs.
Other recommended avenues for further research include:
the utilisation of alternative chemical activation reagents; the
optimisation of the most effective chemical activation tech-
niques; the combined use of activation and surface chemistry
alteration techniques to produce application-specific adsor-
bents; the analysis of how the humic acid to fulvic acid ratio
affects the response of sludges to activation; the utilisation of
novel activation techniques (for example chemical activation
under a gasifying atmosphere); and finally, the optimisation of
CO2 activation and HCl washing. Finally, the economic
viability of producing SBAs on an industrial scale needs to be
evaluated and assessed more generally in the context of
sustainability measures.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the
EU REMOVALS STREP project (http://www.etseq.urv.es/
removals/index.html) under the FP6 Global Change and
Ecosystems priority, contract number 018525.
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