Feature Report

Part 2

Wastewater Sludge
Centrifugation Before Drying
The decanter centrifuge is an important piece of equipment for sludge volume
reduction prior to thermal drying. Understanding centrifuge operation helps manage
drying energy costs
Bart Peeters
Monsanto Europe

IN BRIEF

Effluent
weirs

Pool depth

Sludge
feed

DECANTER CENTRIFUGE
LAB SIMULATION OF
COMPACTION
GOVERNING
PARAMETERS

Conical section (beach)

Bowl (rotor)

COMBINED SYSTEM

Cake

Helical screw conveyor

Centrate

onsecutive mechanical dewatering and thermal drying are integral

parts of sludge management, lowering the sludge volume that needs
to be disposed of or further treated. Because
drying is an energy-intensive unit operation,
the mechanical pre-concentration of the solids is a prerequisite.
The economic necessity for sludge-volume
reduction in the chemical process industries (CPI) as a way to manage downstream
sludge-handling costs was discussed previously (Chem. Eng., Sept. 2014, pp. 5154
[1]). Because dewatering prior to drying is
such an important stage in the sludge-volume-reduction process the drier the sludge
solids, the less costly the next drying stage
this article discusses sludge dewatering
with a solid-bowl decanter centrifuge, one of
the most frequently used types of equipment
for mechanical dewatering of sludge.
The high energy consumption of sludge
dryers is primarily due to the latent heat of
evaporation of water, which is equal to 2,260
kJ/kg at 100 C. To first raise the water temperature from, for instance, 25C to 100C,
an additional 314 kJ/kg is required. This
means that at 100% efficiency, the minimum
heat requirement to evaporate the sludges
56

Lab spin tube test

Water squeezed out of compacting sludge
Compacting sludge

FIGURE 1. This schematic diagram shows a sludge decanter

centrifuge (adapted from Andritz), with a spin tube used in
the laboratory to simulate cake compaction superimposed

water is 2,574 kJ/kg or 715 kWh/m of evaporated water. In industrial dryers, the specific
energy consumption varies between the latter and 1,400 kWh/m3 water evaporated [2].
The specific power consumption, however,
for conventional thickening technology is in
the order of magnitude of only 1 kWh/m of
wastewater slurry treated [3], which makes
mechanical solid/liquid separation about
1,000 times less energy-intensive than thermal drying. Within the global decanter-centrifuge application market in terms of machines
sold, the market share for sludge dewatering is one of the largest with a 35% share in
2000 [4].

Decanter centrifuge
The basic idea of centrifugal solid-liquid separation is simple apply centrifugal force to
a mixture of materials with different densities,
and the heavier substance (solid, or a denser
liquid) will be thrown further outward, resulting in separation [5].
The solid-bowl decanter centrifuge used
to dewater waste sludge is constructed of
an external solid bowl and an internal Archi-

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medean screw conveyor mounted

horizontally (Figure 1). Both rotate in
the same direction, with the helical
screw rotating at a slightly different
speed to the bowl (ranging from 1 to
5 rpm), which allows the solids to be
transported. The conditioned sludge
is pumped via a stationary, central
feed pipe into the hollow shaft of
the rotating screw conveyor. The
sludge moves through ports in the
cylindrical (clarification) part of the
bowl. Because of the centrifugal field
(up to 3,500 times earths acceleration due to gravity) as result of the
spinning bowl (typically in the range
from 2,500 to 3,500 rpm) the heavier
sludge flocs move radially outward to
the inner bowl wall, while the lighter
water remains pooled on top of the
sedimented solids (Figure 1). The
clarified water flows spirally along the
helix of the screw conveyor in the direction of the liquid discharge ports.
This centrate then overflows the effluent weirs at the cylindrical end of
the centrifuge, similar to river water
flowing over a dam.
In the meantime, the sedimented
sludge solids are continuously
scraped by the screw conveyor toward the solids discharge ports at
the opposite, conical end of the bowl.
The sludge follows a complicated
cork-screw motion as it is pushed
along the helical channel formed by
adjacent conveyor blades [6]. During
its 10- to 15-minute transport in the
machine, the sludge is dewatered in
two steps, filtration and expression
[7]. During the first filtration stage,
water is withdrawn from the sludge
to the point where the sludge solids
start to make contact with one another, resulting in an initial solid pressure and the expression phase starts
[7]. Throughout the second and more
important expression stage, the original loosely packed solid structure is
compressed to yield a much denser
state as a result of the centrifugal
compaction stress [3].
The solids in the underlying layers (solids closest to the inner bowl
wall) of the cake under formation
experience compressive forces due
to the pressure from the weight of
the overlying solids (the solids closest to the axis of the centrifuge).
The compressive stress is transferred downward to the cake layers
more adjacent to the inner bowl wall
throughout the continuous linked
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network of solids. In this way, the

sludge cake is further consolidated.
When sludge solids closer to the
inner bowl wall get more compressed
over time, simultaneously, these solids end up at a larger distance from
the center of rotation. As a consequence, the rotational radius for the
overlying sludge particles grows
as well, and, hence, the force they
exert on the lower (underlying) solids
increases accordingly. This in turn
compresses the lower sludge layer
again, and so on [8]. This dynamic
process continues until equilibrium is
reached for any height in the compacted sludge cake.
As a result of the cumulative solids
stress exerted on the cake layer closest to the inner bowl wall, the percent dry substance (%DS) is highest
in this underlying layer, whereas the
cake segment at the surface (closest
to the axis of the centrifuge) remains
less packed and has a significantly
(~10%) lower DS [9]. On average, the
cake discharged typically has a dryness ranging from 20 to 30% DS, depending on the sludge composition.
Concomitantly with the cake compaction, the interstitial water trapped
inside the sludge cake is expelled
from the dense structure [7]. The
water in the sludge matrix flows
slowly upward through narrow channels, away from the inner bowl wall
(that is, in the opposite direction to
the movement of the consolidating
solids), toward the upper cake layer,
which is less compact and consequently more permeable [8]. Water
removal from the sludge, by increasing the compressive stress on the
flocs, resembles squeezing water
from a sponge [7]. The compaction
of the sludge and the resulting expressed water atop the consolidated
sludge is illustrated in Figure 2.
The described dewatering mechanism via compaction (for sludge and
other compressible biotic materials)
is totally different than the deliquoring mechanism via drainage of drainable solids (such as PVC, PVAC or
PVOH polymer grains). In these applications, the pool of liquid lies significantly below the solids-spillover
point in contrast to the case of sludge
dewatering where a large pool depth
is pursued (Figure 1). Drainable solids get their deliquoring in a decanter
centrifuge mainly when the (under
the pool formed) cake is lifted out of

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the liquor pool and emerges on the

dry beach where drainage starts,
eventually combined with a displacement washing of the solids [10].

Compaction simulation
Often, simple laboratory studies
can provide valuable insight into the
physical and chemical mechanisms
at work in your process, and extra
lab effort can prevent grief during
scaleup [11], and this certainly applies also for sludge dewatering in
decanter centrifuges.
The author has developed a laboratory protocol that allows the detailed study of sludge centrifugation
under controlled laboratory conditions [12]. In short, conditioned and
pre-thickened sludge is put in a spin
tube (Figure 2, right) and centrifuged.
Included in the conditioning stage
are the addition of cationic polymer
(discussed below), as well as the application of a certain vast amount of
shearing on the flocculated sludge.
Then, after the sludge is centrifuged
in the laboratory for a standard 45
min., the water that has squeezed
out of the cake (Figure 2, left) is decanted. In the laboratory, it was decided to study the compaction at
quasi-equilibrium conditions [14]
in the decanter centrifuge, the time
required for full cake consolidation is
much longer than the cake retention
time of 1015 min.
Next, the compacted sludge cake
is removed layer by layer with a
laboratory spoon and the dryness
of each layer is determined (%DSi;
illustrated at the left side of Figure
3). Together with the recorded mass
of each cake segment (wi) and the
cake segments radial distance from
the axis of rotation (Ri), the solids
compaction stress (Ps) on an underlying cake layer can, based on the
contributions from all the overlying
cake layers, approximately be calculated as follows [12]:

(1)
where N represents the speed of rotation and A is the surface area of the
layer (from the spin tube). The compaction curves are obtained then
57

centrifugal field is applied) the cake

dryness is lower and vice versa.
Next to a high G-force (high bowl
speed, N), also a high cake inventory
is pursued in a high-solids decanter
centrifuge for effective sludge cake
dewatering [3], since, in that case Ps
is increased according to Equation
(1). This is achieved by operating the
sludge decanter at a so-called nearplugging condition, with the circular
space between screw conveyor hub
and bowl wall almost completely filled
up with sludge cake, as illustrated
in Figure 1. An extended solids residence time in the machine, and inherently high solids buildup to increase
compaction, is made possible by running at a very low differential speed (as
low as 1 rpm), as already mentioned.
A higher Ps yields a higher cake
dryness. This is true up to a certain
Ps (with the value depending on the
sludge composition) from whereon
further increase of the Ps results only
in diminishing to no increase in cake
dryness. This distinctive feature of
compressible biosolids [3] is illustrated in Figure 4, where the compaction curves are shown from three
different sludges that mainly differ by
their inorganic (CaCO3) fraction. The
cake dryness of the best dewatering sludge (upper curve, for sludge
with a 70% inorganic fraction) starts
to reach a plateau of 40.7%DS only
at a high Ps of approximately 160
kPa, whereas a maximal achievable
20.4%DS is already observed at a
much lower 40 kPa for the sludge
with a 45% inorganic fraction (Figure
4, lower curve). At this compaction
stress, the effect of the inorganic
fraction is further illustrated: the cake
dryness increases from 20.4% to
29.5%DS and 33.9%DS for sludges
with 45%, 60% and 70% inorganic
fraction, respectively. From this, it is
clear that the inorganic solids en-

by plotting, on a log10 scale, cake

dryness of the different cake layers versus the respective calculated
compressive pressures acting on the
center of the cake layers [3]. This is
illustrated at the right side of Figure 3
for waste sludge that was centrifuged
at two speeds of rotation (3,600 or
4,400 rpm) and two amounts used
to fill up the tubes (30 or 50 g) to get
a thin and thick cake.

Governing parameters

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
10

3,600 rpm
or 4,400 rpm
Spin tube filled with
50 g or 30 g

50 g - 3,600 rpm
n 30 g - 3,600 rpm
50 g - 4,400 rpm
l 30 g - 4,400 rpm

12

14

16

18
20
Cake &DS

22

24

26

-0,5

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

-0,55
-0,6

1,2

1,4

16 kPa
23% DS

-0,65

Water squeezed
out of cake

Different cake
segment analyzed

Height cake segment above bottom

tube (cm)

The %DS obtained after centrifugal

dewatering of a certain sludge and
applied dewatering time is a unique
function of Ps which, on its turn, is
determined by the rotational speed,
the mass and density of the solids.
This is exemplified with the data
shown in Figure 3. Although clearly
different cake dryness data were obtained with a thin and thick cake from
the same sludge, with a low and high
rotational speed, these data are basically all part of the same compaction curve (characteristic for that
particular sludge). When a lower Ps
is exerted on the sludge (because a
thinner cake is centrifuged, or a lower

Log %DS

FIGURE 2. These sludge samples are shown before

(right) and after (left) centrifugal compaction in a
laboratory spin tube

meshed within the sludge floc have

a large impact on the cake dryness.
An explanation therefore is found in
the concept of these solids acting
as a skeleton builder [15]. When incompressible and drainable solids
are present in the compressible and
non-drainable biological material, the
resulting more-rigid lattice structure
allows further dewatering at higher
pressures since the compacting cake
remains more porous and water can
still be expelled out.
Furthermore, next to their presence
in the sludge flocs by means of precipitated and enmeshed CaCO3 salts,
Ca2+ ions can also be present in the
sludge flocs as bridging agents between the negatively charged sludge
flocs, the latter due to the presence
of extracellular polymeric substances
(EPS) [1617]. Thanks to their stabilizing effect of the floc structure, the
cake dryness increases roughly by
2%DS after centrifugal dewatering
at 20 kPa compaction stress when
these exchangeable calcium ions are
present in the flocs [18].
It is widely recognized that wastewater sludge exhibits poor dewaterability due to the presence of EPS,
which induce an overall negative surface charge on the flocs. That is why
raw waste sludge is first conditioned
with cationic polymers to neutralize
the sludges negative surface charge
before feeding it to a mechanical
dewatering device. Additionally, the
polymer conditioning of the sludge
flocs also serves the need for more
shear-resistant flocs, and the need
for the ability to reform flocs after
these have been broken down by
shear forces, which certainly applies
in the case of decanter centrifuges.
Indeed, severe mechanical shear occurs during feed acceleration, when
the sludge enters the bowl via the
stationary feed pipe and then hits

-0,7

-0,75

During dewatering:
Solids compacting
and
Water squeezed out

50 g - 3,600 rpm
n 30 g - 3,600 rpm
50 g - 4,400 rpm
l 30 g - 4,400 rpm

-0,8
-0,85
-0,9
-0,95

Spin tube

Log Ps (kPa)

FIGURE 3. Sludge compaction tests at four different centrifugation combinations are shown: two solids amounts were used to fill the spin tubes (30 or 50 g) and
two speeds of rotation were applied (4,400 or 3,600 rpm) (DS = dry substance, Ps = solids compaction stress) (adapted from [13])
58

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0,5

1,5

-0,3

1.6 (Ps = 40 kPa)

2,5
2.2 (Ps = 40 kPa)

40.7 %DS
-0,4
70% inorganic fraction

33.9 %DS

Log %DS

-0,5

29.5 %DS
60% inorganic fraction

-0,6
20.4 %DS
-0,7
45% inorganic fraction
-0,8

Log Ps [kPa]

-0,9

FIGURE 4. Sludges with different levels of inorganic substances can show variable compaction curves

the rotating feeding chamber in the

hollow screw conveyor (at very high
speed) and, next, the water pool,
bringing the new incoming sludge
feed suddenly to high centrifugal acceleration [3]. For the shear intensive
decanter centrifuge applications,
non-linear polymers with higher molecular weight and higher degree of
structure, with cross-linking between
the polymer chains, have been developed. Clearly, the most appropriate polymer (and its optimal dosing)
needs to be evaluated for a particular
sludge prior to testing it in the field at
the full-scale centrifuge (or, at least,
the number of commercially available
polymers needs to be funneled to a
smaller number before going to reallife). This can be accomplished by
means of the bench-scale spin tube

test described previously. A typical

polymer dosing is in the range of 5 to
20 kg polymer active substance per
ton of DS.
Prior to the polymer addition,
sludge conditioning with polyaluminiumchloride (PACl) can be justified in case the sludge compaction
proceeds in the machine to the
dryness range where the partially
dewatered sludge comes into its
sticky phase [1]. Without the stickiness-mitigating effect of the PACl,
the screw conveyor can experience
serious torque issues due to the
pasty sludge cake, resulting in the
choking of the decanter, seriously
hampering its proper working. PACl
addition is shown to almost completely eliminate the stickiness of
sludge [19].
1. Sludge is mechanically dewatered

Decanter centrifuge

Dryer

Centrifuge cyclone chamber

Impact cone

PACI

Cake (20 to 30% DS)

Waste sludge
Cationic
(~2%DS)
polymer

2. Cake is smashed upon impact

with a stationary impact cone
Cyclone
Centrate
Hot drying gas

4. Dried solids are

separated from
the gas stream

3. Hot drying gas stream dries and

carries the sludge particles

Dried solids
(~95%DS)

FIGURE 5. A sludge centrifuge and dryer system can be housed in one enclosed machine
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Combined system
Figure 5 shows the flow scheme
from a centrifuge-dryer system
where both unit operations are combined in one compact and enclosed
system [14, 20]. Briefly, the sludge is
dewatered in the decanter centrifuge
(as described above), whereupon
the discharged cake lumps are immediately disintegrated by impact
on a cone surrounding the cakedischarge ports. The resulting solids
spray is flash-dried and entrained by
a hot gas stream, and a few seconds
later, ~95% DS solids are separated
in a cyclone.
The huge benefit of this approach is
that it has a very simple layout without
any need for intermediate storage or
conveying of the dewatered sludge
cake before feeding it to the next
drying stage. In contrast, most industrial sludge-handling installations
have a separate dewatering step (a
belt filter press or centrifuge, for instance), wherein the resulting cake is
then temporarily stored and further
conveyed to a standalone sludge
dryer. To avoid having the sludge in
the dryer equipment go through its
sticky phase, the final dried material
is recycled and back-mixed with the
dewatered cake. This way, the %DS
of the blended dryer feed is brought
typically beyond 70%DS and from
that point, it becomes crumbly and
conveyable. In disc, paddle and thinfilm dryers, the sticky issues need to
be addressed by designing the dryer
with high-torque capabilities. The
design of the internal rotor is important to overcome the sticky phase in
these dryers [21].
The continuous transition from
centrifugation to flash drying (Figure 5) makes the combined system
unique, but it is also its proverbial
Achilles heel. This is because a serious but inherent drawback lies in the
fact that the sludge cake leaving the
centrifuge is literally never seen, and
thus never analyzed. The system
resembles a black box, where liquid sludge is pumped in, and when
everything goes well, dry-dust solids come out. Information on the inbetween product (cake) is lacking,
which makes process optimization
difficult. Tests like the previously described spin tube test, to simulate at
laboratory scale the compaction ocn
curring at full-scale, can help.
Edited by Scott Jenkins
59

References
1. Peeters, B., Dewil, R., Smets, I., Challenges of drying sticky wastewater sludge, Chem. Eng., Sept.
2014, pp. 5154.
2. Bennamoun, L., Arlabosse, P., Lonard, A., Review
on fundamental aspect of application of drying
process to wastewater sludge, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 28, pp. 2943, 2013.
3. Leung, W.W.-F., Industrial Centrufugation Technology, New-York: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1998.
4. Records, A., Sutherland, K.S., Decanter Centrifuge
Handbook, New York: Elsevier Advanced Technology, 2001.
5. Moir, D.N. Sedimentation centrifuges: know what
you need, Chem. Eng., March 1988, pp. 4251.
6. Leung, W.W.-F., Torque requirement for high-solids
centrifugal sludge dewatering, Filtration and Separation 35, pp. 883887, 1998.
7. Novak, J.T., Dewatering of sewage sludge, Drying
Technology 24, pp. 1,2571,262, 2006.
8. Curvers, D. Saveyn, H., Scales, P.J., Van der
Meeren, P., A centrifugation method for the assessment of low pressure compressibility of particulate
suspensions, Chemical Engineering Journal 148,
pp. 405413, 2009.
9. Leung, W.W.-F., Dewatering biosolids sludge with
VariGateTM Decanter centrifuge, In: Proceedings of
the 2000 annual AFS conference, Anaheim, Calif.,
July 2526, 2000.
10. Peeters, B., Weis, S., Relationship between pool
depth and internal washing on the beach of a solid
bowl decanter centrifuge, Filtration and Separation
41, pp. 3640, 2004.
11. McConville, F.X., A bit of extra lab effort can prevent grief during scaleup, Chem. Eng. May 2006,

pp. 3841.
12. Peeters, B. Dewil, R., Van Impe, J., Vernimmen, L.,
Meeusen, W., Smets, I.Y., Polyelectrolyte flocculation
of waste activated sludge in decanter centrifuge applications: lab evaluation by a centrifugal compaction test, Environmental Engineering Science 28,
pp. 765773, 2011.
13. Peeters, B., Vernimmen, L., Meeusen, W., Lab protocol for a spin tube test, simulating centrifugal
compaction of activated sludge, Filtration 9, pp.
205217, 2009.
14. Peeters, B., Effect of activated sludge composition
on its dewaterability and sticky phase, Ph.D. dissertation, KU Leuven (Belgium), p. 280, 2011.
15. Zhao, Y.Q., Enhancement of alum sludge dewatering capacity by using gypsum as skeleton builder,
Colloids Surf. A Physiochem. Eng. Asp. 2011, pp.
205212, 2002.
16. Peeters, B., Herman, S., Monitor cations in CPI
wastewater for better performance, Chem. Eng.
May 2007, pp. 5662.
17. Peeters, B., Dewil, R., Lechat, D., Smets, I.Y., Quantification of the exchangeable calcium in activated
sludge flocs and its implication to sludge settleability, Separation and Purification Technology 83, pp.
18, 2011.
18. Peeters B., Dewil, R., Vernimmen, L., Smets, I.Y.,
Understanding the role of the two calcium pools on
centrifugal dewaterability of sludge to avoid stickiness problems in centrifuge-dryers, Filtration 13,
pp. 103112, 2013.
19. Peeters, B., Dewil, R., Vernimmen, L., Van den
Bogaert, B., Smets, I.Y., Addition of polyaluminiumchloride (PACl) to waste activated sludge to
mitigate the negative effects of its sticky phase in
dewatering-drying operations, Water Research 47,
pp. 3,6003,609, 2013.

20. Peeters, B., Mechanical dewatering and thermal

drying of sludge in a single apparatus, Drying Technology 28, pp. 454459, 2010.
21. Arlabosse, P., Ferrasse, J.-H., Lecomte, D., Crine,
M., Dumont, Y., Lonard, A., Efficient sludge thermal
processing: from drying to thermal valorization. In:
E. Tsotsas, A.S. Mujumdar, Eds., Modern Drying
Technology, Volume 4: Energy Savings, Wiley-VCH
Verlag & Co., Weinheim, Germany, 2011.

Author
Bart Peeters is a manufacturing
technologist at Monsanto Europe
N.V. (Haven 627, Scheldelaan
460, 2040 Antwerp, Belgium;
Phone: +32 3 568 5762; Email:
bart.peeters@monsanto.com),
where he has been working since
1998. He first served as a process
improvement engineer at Eastmans PVB polymer manufacturing plant on site, until 2004. Since then, he has been
working at the environmental department of the company, with particular responsibilities in improving the
wastewater treatment plant and the combined sludge
centrifuge-dryer installation. Peeters is a Six Sigma
Master Black Belt and is also the Six Sigma program
leader at the Monsanto Antwerp site. While working at
Monsantos WWTP, he obtained his Ph.D. in engineering from the KU Leuven (Belgium) in 2011 on the research topic Effect of activated sludge composition on
its dewaterability and sticky phase. Prior to that, he
received his M.S.Ch.E. degree in 1998 from the KU
Leuven, plus his M.Bio.Ch.E. degree in 1996 from the
university college De Nayer. He is the author of 20 papers in scientific journals, technical magazines and international conferences.

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