Proceedings

Management of excess sludge from wastewater treatment plants is one of the most challenging tasks for the wastewater treatment sector. Dewatering is an important part of sludge management. This paper gives an overview of the dewatering processes used on site at Ringsend WwTW in Ireland, the challenges involved in dewatering different sludge blends at the plant, and ongoing improvement of the dewatering processes through the implementation of key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs were established for centrate quality, and quantities of polymer used. The paper describes the implementation of these KPIs and subsequent improvement in dewatering control, with a focus on the dewatering of sludge in a centrifuge before thermal drying.