How the Treatment Plant Processes affect Dewatering

Changes in performance of the dewatering end of the plant have major impact on costs. Alfa Laval has found a number of practices and conditions in the operation of the plant that directly affect dewatering performance. In upstream treatment efficiencies improvement can generate significant opportunity for sludge dewatering success.Within most commonly used for wastewater treatment and sludge pre-treatment processes, this paper gives examples of good and poor operation, and offers a chart, depicting the range of performance data for sludge dewatering, influenced by different variations in the main treatment processes.The paper is specific enough to allow an operator to predict the effect of changes in a wet end of treatment on dewatering results.Another source for sludge dewatering improvement can be find in planned maintenance. By combining planned maintenance and continuous optimization of process dewatering, the overall cost of dewatering operation can be reduced significantly.