Journal Pre-proof

Cavitation-based pre-treatment of wastewater and waste sludge for

improvement in the performance of biological processes: A review

Akash P. Bhat, Parag R. Gogate

PII: S2213-3437(20)31092-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2020.104743
Reference: JECE 104743

To appear in: Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering

Received Date: 14 October 2020

Revised Date: 30 October 2020
Accepted Date: 4 November 2020

Please cite this article as: Bhat AP, Gogate PR, Cavitation-based pre-treatment of wastewater
and waste sludge for improvement in the performance of biological processes: A review,
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering (2020),
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2020.104743

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 1

Cavitation-based pre-treatment of wastewater and waste sludge for

improvement in the performance of biological processes: A review

Akash P. Bhat and Parag R. Gogate*

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Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Chemical Technology,

Matunga, Mumbai, India-400019

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* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed

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Email: pr.gogate@ictmumbai.edu.in

Graphical Abstract:
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Highlights

 Analysis of geometric and operating conditions in terms of evaluation matrices

 Increased biodegradability and COD reduction are observed for wastewater

 Waste sludge pre-treatment yields higher methane/energy in anaerobic digestion

 The system is observed to be cost effective and energy positive

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Abstract

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Long treatment times, large quantity of sludge generation, inhibition by micro-organisms and

inability to degrade refractory pollutants are common disadvantages of biological treatment

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processes. Cavitation-based pre-treatment processes can enhance the treatment efficiency of

biological treatment including aerobic oxidation and anaerobic digestion. This work presents a

critical review on cavitation-based pre-treatment for subsequent biological oxidation process as

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well as for the treatment and modification of waste sludge for subsequent anaerobic digestion.

For wastewater pre-treatment, important metrics to be assessed are COD reduction, and
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biodegradability index enhancement. In several studies, a BI improvement up to 50-60% has been

observed with cavitation. For sludge pre-treatment, particle size reduction, soluble COD and
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degree of disintegration (DDCOD) increase, and enhancement of biomethane production potential

have been reviewed. The effect of several process parameters like ultrasound power,

hydrodynamic cavitation pressure and geometry, time, and pH are critically reviewed and

compared for various studies. Improvements in treatment times, higher enzymatic digestibility,

removal of refractory pollutants, and lower inhibition in the biological processes were observed
 3

as the key advantages. Optimum cavitation numbers for efficient pre-treatment lie between 0.05

and 0.15. It is observed that low hydrodynamic pressures are the most advantageous for sludge

disintegration and also the process is highly time dependent. Cavitation, especially the

hydrodynamic mode, is demonstrated as an economically feasible advanced oxidation-

pretreatment for sludge modification and biological oxidation processes leading ultimately to an

‘energy-positive system’. Future studies in this context should mainly focus on continuous flow-

pilot scale systems applicable commercially.

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Key words: Hydrodynamic cavitation; ultrasound; biological oxidation; wastewater sludge;

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anaerobic digestion.

Nomenclature:

α
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Ratio of Total Perimeter to Total Area Of Orifice
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AOP Advanced Oxidation Processes
β0 Ratio of Total Area to Cross-Sectional Area Of Pipe
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In Orifices
BI Biodegradability Index
BOD Biochemical Oxygen Demand
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BTNX Benzene, Toluene, Naphthalene and Xylene

COD Chemical Oxygen Demand
CST Capillary Suction Time
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Cv Cavitation Number
DDCOD Degree of Disintegration of Sludge
DDOUR Degree of Inactivation Based on Oxygen Utilization
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Rate
FT-IR Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
HC Hydrodynamic Cavitation
PSD Particle Size Distribution
SCFA Short Chain Fatty Acids
SCOD Soluble Chemical Oxygen Demand
 4

SRF Specific Resistance to Filtration

TCOD Total Chemical Oxygen Demand
TS Total Solids
TSS Total Suspended Solids
US Ultrasound
UV Ultraviolet
WW Wastewater
WWTP Wastewater Treatment Plant

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1. Introduction

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Biological treatment of water encompasses aerobic or anaerobic processes that drain out large

amounts of activated or digested sludge respectively. Wastewater treatment can produce large
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amounts of sludge, between 5 and 30% of volume of wastewater processed [1,2]. Bio-sludge

majorly consists of biomass, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and water [3,4]. The
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metabolic properties of the micro-organisms in the biomass are harnessed in biological treatment

processes, leading to oxidation or reduction of organic pollutants [5]. These processes are
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intensified by simulating appropriate conditions like oxygen concentration and pH in a bioreactor,

and usually called ‘secondary treatment process’. Biological processes are generally cost

effective in terms of operating costs, while capital costs may be high in terms of agitators or
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aeration pumps used [6]. One of the major drawbacks of biological processes is their ability to
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only process biodegradable compounds. Biological treatment process and the metabolism of

micro-organisms can be inhibited by the presence of toxic, recalcitrant, and persistent compounds

in wastewater [7]. The biomass is unable to process large-sized compounds that contribute to a

high chemical oxygen demand (COD). With a high organic load, biological processes may also

take longer retention times, increasing the aeration costs. Combination of biological processes

with other chemical-based processes like advanced oxidation can be effectively used to degrade
 5

persistent and recalcitrant pollutants from wastewater before it is biologically treated and thereby

decreasing the processing costs [8].

Anaerobic digestion and biomethane production, is another conventional biological process.

Biogas can be produced from cellulosic biomass, food waste or anaerobic sludge. Drawbacks of

biomethane production lie within the difficulty in cell lysis in the waste activated sludge leading to

long retention times up to 60 days [5,9]. While biogas production can be employed using various

raw wastes, most wastes require pre-treatment to improve conversion, productivity and yield [10].

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Using pre-treatment for biomass processing involves size reduction, breaking of the complex

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hemicellulosic recalcitrant structures and solubilization of the substrate among other mechanisms

[11,12] and these observed effects help to enhance the biomethane yield and the hydrolysis rates

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[13].

In recent decades, increasing attention has been paid to cavitation, an emerging advanced
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oxidation technique. Cavitation is the process of formation, growth and collapse of vapor cavities
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within microseconds generating intense shockwaves and leading to localized hotspots with

temperature between 1000 to 15000 K and pressure from 500 to 5000 bar [14]. Additionally, the

collapse of cavities also generates highly oxidizing free hydroxyl radicals contributing to chemical
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effects as well as high turbulence and shear mixing jets contributing to physical effects [15].

Cavitation can be produced using high pressure flow and a sudden constriction (hydrodynamic
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cavitation) or by using ultrasound (acoustic cavitation) [16,17]. Cavitation has been reported in a

vast number of studies for degradation of organic pollutants in wastewater, often most of these
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studies deal with a single contaminant. Recently, cavitation has been studied to treat real

industrial effluents and as a pre-treatment alternative to advanced oxidation processes [18,19].

The process of cavity generation is based on pressure variations in the liquid medium (Figure 1).

Cavities may be generated by ultrasound with frequencies between 16 KHz to 2 MHz (more

specific effects are seen over the range of 20 kHz to 1 MHz) that lead to pressure variations in
 6

the medium due to the compression and rarefactions of the waves [20]. In hydrodynamic

cavitation, cavities are generated by a high-pressure flow impinging on a sudden constriction like

a venturi or orifice leading to a sudden pressure drop [21]. If the local pressure drops below the

vapor pressure of the liquid medium at the vena contracta, cavities are generated. Pressure

recovery downstream of constriction as the flow area increases, usually leads to cavity growth

and violent implosion. Energy loss in terms of pressure drop downstream of the flow leads to high

intensity turbulence. Formation of cavities, intensity of formation, number of cavities, collapse

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intensity, and the turbulence depend on the type of constriction and flow conditions at the

constriction [14] and need to be optimized for obtaining a cost effective operation.

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The dimensionless number, called cavitation number (CV) is used to express the intensity of

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cavitation in hydrodynamic cavitation.

𝑃2 −𝑃𝑉
𝐶𝑉 = …(1)
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1 2
( )×ρ×𝑉𝑡ℎ
2
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Where, P2 is the downstream recovered pressure, PV is the vapor pressure of the liquid, ρ is the

density of the liquid medium, Vth is the velocity at the throat, all in SI units. Under ideal conditions,
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cavities are generated at CV<1 [22]. The presence of dissolved gases and particles may lead to

formation of additional nuclei that sometimes can cause cavities to form even if C V is more than

unity. Theoretically, higher cavities are formed when CV is low, leading to intensified effects of
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cavitation. It is also important to note that too low Cv is also not recommended as it gives super
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cavitation which is equivalent to formation of a cavity cloud that collapses with much lower

intensity. Typical recommended values of Cv is in the range of 0.1 to 1 or more specifically 0.15

to 0.4. Cavitation can be controlled by controlling the downstream pressure where the cavities

collapse. A careful consideration of device geometry and inlet pressure is necessary for

understanding cavitation. Risks of cavitation include the damage to impellor, pump, or the reactor

at high pressures or health risk with prolonged exposure to ultrasound. Hydrodynamic cavitation
 7

needs to be carefully operated within the pressure limits and presence of bypass or pressure

release valves. Cavitation, both acoustic and hydrodynamic has been widely reported to degrade

a wide range of compounds and for wastewater treatment. Cavitation, if not a stand-alone

treatment due to its low (<40%) stand-alone COD reduction capabilities, still offers great promise

as a pre-treatment technique and this aspect has been reviewed in the current study.

The combination of cavitation and biological processes offers great promise economically and

environmentally. Often, the formation of stable intermediates in cavitation leads to a smaller

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decrease in COD (up to 40% initial reduction) but the hydroxyl radicals can degrade large bio-

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refractory molecules to smaller biodegradable molecules, assisting in a more efficient biological

oxidation [23]. Similarly, cavitation is able to break the hemicellulose structures and increase the

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solubility of digested sludge when used as a pre-treatment. Cavitation presents itself as a

promising pre-treatment due to its low cost, non-usage of additional chemicals and zero
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production of additional wastes [18,24]. There have been multiple studies in the use of cavitation

as a pre-treatment for wastewater before biological oxidation and the use of cavitation for pre-
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treatment of waste sludge to improve anaerobic digestion. There have been certain reviews on

pre-treatment methods for waste sludge and sludge disintegration [25–29], specifically a few older
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reviews on ultrasonic sludge disintegration pre-treatment [13,30–33], and reviews on use of

advanced oxidation processes as pre-treatment of wastewater for biological application [34–37].

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These reviews (mostly in terms of ultrasound) do not include literature post-2016. To our

knowledge, there have been no compilation and assessment of studies on hydrodynamic

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cavitation processes as a pre-treatment, additionally none of the reviews include hydrodynamic

cavitation and compare it to ultrasonic processes. Considering these issues, the current study

includes a compiled dataset with a critical review on use of cavitation as (a) pre-treatment for

wastewater and (b) cavitation as pre-treatment of sludge for biological processes. Such a review

will be useful for future research on cavitation and pre-treatment for biological oxidation processes
 8

and will drive certain aspects of future research. The current study enforces the idea of an energy

positive commercial system with respect to wastewater and waste sludge treatment. The goal is

to highlight standard practices, parameters and compare studies to avoid future redundancies,

and for a possible application of cavitation for commercial purposes. It is observed that cavitation

can be highly beneficial and cost effective as a pre-treatment to anaerobic digestion and biological

treatment, if certain parameters are carefully optimized. To our knowledge, the study of

applicability of cavitation in biological processes carried out in this study has never been reported

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for commercial applications.

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2. Wastewater pre-treatment

High BOD or biodegradability index (ratio of BOD to COD) is required for an efficient biological
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oxidation process. Several bio-refractory compounds present in the wastewater COD cannot be
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digested by microbes. Treatment of such refractory compounds is needed before the wastewater

is sent for aerobic oxidation. There have been several studies on improving the efficiency of

biological oxidation by water pre-treatment, such studies include advanced oxidation processes.
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Cavitation is an effective pre-treatment technique that can be applied for increasing the

biodegradability of wastewater thereby aiding in increasing the biological oxidation efficiency by

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the non-selective degradation large organic compounds. The non-selective attack of hydroxyl

radicals in cavitation can mineralize many refractory molecules that contribute to the COD. The
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biodegradability index must be at increased to at least 0.4 (or more) for making the wastewater

susceptible to aerobic oxidation with activated sludge [38]. The following sections are divided into

(1) a review of various metrics that are important with respect to cavitation-based wastewater

treatment and (2) a review of effect of process parameters specifically important for biological

treatment following cavitation-based pretreatment. The study of COD degradation and

 9

biodegradability index along with simulation of biological process at a lab scale is important for

determining the effectiveness of cavitation for pre-treatment application. Important parameters

that affect the process include inlet pressure, geometry of the device, temperature, pH, initial COD

or dilution. Further, addition of oxidants can help improve the COD reduction decreasing the load

on the biological process, thereby increasing the rate.

2.1. Metrics of importance

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2.1.1. COD degradation

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COD fractionation can be used to analyze enhanced biodegradability of wastewater. In context to

biodegradation or microbial degradation, soluble readily biodegradable COD (SS) is metabolized

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in minutes when transported inside the cell membrane. The soluble slowly biodegradable fraction

of COD (SH) needs extracellular fractionation and size reduction before it can be metabolized.
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The last fraction, soluble inert COD (SI) consists of recalcitrant chemicals which may have access

to the microbial cell structure but cannot be biodegraded in the required timespan. The process
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of cleavage of compounds by oxidation that leads to a gradual decrease in total COD, leads to an

increase in SS. Another method for analyzing the biodegradability is the particle size determination
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(PSD) analysis for COD contents [39]. To our best knowledge, reduction in COD particle size

gives a direct indication of conversion of SH to SS. PSD has never been reported for cavitation-
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assisted pre-treatment processes for enhancement of biodegradability of wastewaters. PSD has

been utilized for AOPs like ozonation and Fenton, and the use may be extended for cavitation-
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based approaches to analyze the changes [40]. Qualitative determination of type of compounds,

functional groups and the size of compounds is possible with Fourier transform Infrared

spectroscopy (FT-IR) [41]. FTIR has been harnessed for qualitative and quantitative information

on degradation of the parent compound and formation of byproducts. Structural characterization

 10

of compounds after pretreatment can be a very important tool in analyzing the process and

mechanism, and can be achieved using FT-IR [42,43].

For wastewater samples that have been studied for increased biodegradability by cavitation-

based pretreatment, the initial COD widely differs between 5000 and 15000 mg L-1 of O2 [44,45],

depending on the type of industry. A variety of compounds present in different quantities in each

wastewater create a unique complex matrix of compounds in each case that cannot be

quantitatively compared. COD degradation is the most important metric used to analyze the

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treatment strategy in all the cases. COD degradation for cavitation-pre-treatment of approximately

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120 minutes at optimum pressures has been reported to be in the range from as low as 14 % [46]

to up to 50 % [47]. Inlet pressure, type of constriction used, pH, temperature, and dilution are

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important parameters that affect this metric, and are discussed in later sections. With an

observation of increase in total suspended solids (TSS) by cavitation-pretreatment, the use of

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coagulation following cavitation has been reported to achieve a 75% COD reduction [48].

Analysis that can also be used to complement COD data is the qualitative compound analysis
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using FT-IR [49]. A study reported conversion of cyclic compounds to straight chain compounds,

and their final conversion to CO2 [46]. In general, all cavitation-based wastewater treatment
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studies have reported only between 25 and 40% COD reduction and while cavitation may not

qualify as a stand-alone treatment, hydrodynamic cavitation can be used as a low-cost pre-

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treatment. The non-selective degradation of recalcitrant compounds by cavitation has been

reported several times [23] and can be anchored to enhance the efficiency of biological oxidation
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following cavitation.

2.1.2. Biodegradability index

The degradation of contaminants in wastewater by cavitation also needs to be investigated in

terms of BOD5. The biodegradability index (BI) of an effluent determines its applicability in a

biological oxidation process [39,50]. The biodegradability index (BI) of an effluent determines the
 11

possibility and susceptibility of degradation of dissolved compounds by biochemical reactions by

microorganisms. In most reports, BI is expressed as the ratio of BOD5 to COD of an effluent. An

effluent can be treated by biodegradation or biological oxidation by activated sludge provided that

the BI is more than 0.4, higher the BI higher the susceptibility of the effluent is to biological

treatment [51]. Hence, the goal of cavitation pretreatment is to increase the BI to at least 0.4 for

the effective application of biological treatment. Various Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs)

including ozonation, Fenton’s reagent, cavitation, photocatalysis and their combinations have

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been reported to improve biodegradability [8]. Cavitation-based preliminary degradation of

effluents that have considerable toxicity facilitates efficient activity of activated sludge by

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enhancing uptake of organic compounds inside the cell membrane leading to further degradation

in subsequent stages of activated sludge biological oxidation [38]. Several studies report

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increments in biodegradability indices (BI) making the effluents conducive to biological oxidation,
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for example increase in BI from 0.2 to up to 0.5 and 0.57 [48,52] (Table 1). On the other hand,

aerobic oxidation cannot be used for some studies that report a decrease in biodegradability index
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for some effluents or under certain conditions like elevated hydrodynamic cavitation pressures

[53,54]. It is necessary that BI improvement be complemented with a high COD degradation in

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the preliminary treatment.

2.1.3. Biological application

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The overall efficiency of the pre-treatment can be determined by aerobic oxidation experiments

in terms of decrease in time, decrease in sludge generation, enhanced rate or extent of

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degradation. The most efficient lab-scale simulation can be performed using a working municipal

activated sludge with a good mix of culture. For the chosen activated sludge, the optimum sludge

volume index may be between 100 to 200 mL g-1 [5]. A very few studies on cavitation-based

pretreatment demonstrate lab-scale experimental studies for the activated sludge treatment

[44,55,56]. Most studies on improving biodegradability only consider changes in BI. The
 12

drawbacks of using biological oxidation without pre-treatment include long retention times, slow

COD reduction and resistance of biodegradation of recalcitrant and toxic chemicals. Studies have

shown a decrease of biological oxidation time-scales from 60 hours to 21 hours by the introduction

of cavitation pre-treatment for the same COD reduction [44]. Another study demonstrated that

both rate and extent of COD reduction can increase with the introduction of cavitation pre-

treatment [55]. The higher the COD reduction in the preliminary treatment, lesser is the load on

activated sludge process and faster will be the treatment, while this might come at the expense

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of higher costs. Similarly, analysis on biotoxicity reduction can also be used as a metric for

susceptibility of microbial degradation. Most of the studies that demonstrate biological

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degradation, use activated sludge from industrial or municipal treatment plants. Sludge

modification and isolation of micro-organisms is highly suggested to analyze the effect of

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increased biodegradable and is demonstrated by [44]. Inhibition of certain microbes in the
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biomass plays an important role in the efficiency of biological oxidation.
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2.2. Effect of important operating parameters

2.2.1. HC Pressure
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Inlet pressure and cavitation number (CV) are considered the most important parameters for

inducing hydrodynamic cavitation. The pressure at which the liquid medium hits the constriction
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determines the rate and intensity of generation of cavities. An optimum number of cavities

intensifies the wastewater treatment process, leading to contaminant degradation. Cavitation

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number directly relates to this pressure and is used to assess the cavitating device and compare

results across various processes. The higher the inlet pressure, the lower is the cavitation

number. Theoretically, cavitation starts, and cavities occur at a cavitation number lower than unity

[16]. Increase in pressure above the optimum and thereby an excessive decrease in cavitation

number leads to formation of excessive cavities leading to cavity-coalescence and formation of

 13

cavity-cloud. At such high pressures and cavitation numbers <0.1, the effect of cavitation in

contaminant degradation is minimal. In literature, contaminant degradation has been reported to

take place anywhere between Cv of 0.1 and 1, in some cases less than 0.1 [57].

Most studies that report an increased biodegradability report an optimum inlet pressure of 4 to 10

bars. For distillery wastewater, an increase in pressure from 5 bar to 13 bar (C V unreported), did

not change the COD reduction substantially (32 and 34% respectively) but an increased final

biodegradability (0.32 from 0.13) was reported at the higher pressure [58]. A similar observation

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for a vegetable oil refinery wastewater was reported; slightly higher COD reduction and BI was

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observed at 8 bars as compared to 6 bar inlet pressure. The optimum Cv in this study was 0.18

[52]. Some unexplained and confusing observations were reported in another study for fish

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processing wastewater, increasing the pressure from 6 to 8 bar for a 2- orifice plate reduced the

BI of the wastewater whereas increasing the pressure from 6 to 8 bars for a 3-orifice plate
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increased the BI to up to 0.55 [47] (Table 1). A high COD reduction of 51% was reported with

cavitation-only process. The complementary results with respect to BI presents an interesting

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trade-off between pressure and cavitating device geometry that is explained in detail in the HC

geometry section. The Cv reduced substantially in a 2-orifice plate at higher pressure compared
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to in a 3-hole orifice, leading to the cavity-cloud effect. Most other studies report only a single

pressure in their studies that range between 4 and 10 bars. The consensus on optimum cavitation
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numbers between 0.07 to 0.2 for several studies is reported in Table 1. The drawbacks of using

high pressures in the process (>12 bars) are high costs of treatment, damage to impellor and
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pumps due to overheating, formation of cavity-cloud and ineffective cavitation effects. An optimum

pressure of up to 8 bars has been observed for most studies with CV being more than 0.07.
 14

2.2.2. HC geometry

Various types of hydrodynamic cavitation devices can be used to induce cavities (Figure 2),

although not all have been used for biodegradability enhancement. Most commonly, venturi tubes

(slit and circular) and orifice plates are used as cavitating devices. Theoretically, venturi tubes

have been reported to give denser cavitation clouds, increased time available to bubble growth

and collapse [59]. In general, such conditions yield higher turbulence and greater collapse

intensity beyond the constriction. The careful consideration of device geometry is required to

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apply it to practice. Collapse conditions, turbulence intensity, velocity gradients are important

theoretical considerations that affect the contaminant degradation and imperfect conditions often

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yield low COD reductions even though optimum pressures may have been applied. While none

of the studies compare an orifice plate and a venturi tube in the same study for direct conclusions

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to be drawn, some generalizations can be made with respect to cavitating device geometry.
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In orifices, theoretically a higher number of holes will produce more jet streams and lead to higher

cavitational effects. However, this is more complex in practice and also depends on the pressure
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along with the geometry. Two parameters, α and β0 have been designed to study the performance

of orifices with respect to their geometry [60]. With regards to the α parameter (ratio of total
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perimeter to total area), Bis et al., 2015 reported the highest degradation for the constriction with

highest velocity (Table 2). Similarly, a lower β0 (ratio of total area to cross-section of the pipe)
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favors higher cavitational intensity. At the tested pressure, plate B with highest β0 value,

demonstrated lowest degradation efficiency. The one-hole orifice showed the best results
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because of the highest constriction velocity and lowest β0 value. Such behavior is seen to change

for different studies. Since the flowrate for each type of constriction changes for different

pressures, the conflicting results for a two-hole and three-hole orifice for Dhanke et al., 209, can

be explained with α and β0 parameters [47]. Gogate and Pandit highlighted that the diameter of

the orifices must be optimized for each study depending on the specific application [14]. An
 15

increase in biodegradability, which has been termed as requiring intense cavitational effects

would need higher diameters as compared to smaller diameters for reduced intensity. This

explains the higher BI enhancement for a 3-hole orifice of 3 mm each. At that given pressure of 8

bars with the lowest cavitation number, the 3-hole orifice could produce more intense cavitational

effects due to its higher constriction velocity (leading to higher BI) whereas in a 2-hole orifice,

there could be effects like cavity-clouds and coalescence or dominance of physical and chemical

effects. The behavior at 6 bars was exactly the opposite, where the 2-hole orifice performed better.

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A venturi tube operates with lower pressure loss based on the geometry and provide more time

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for bubble growth and collapse [61]. As the cavitation zone extends beyond the constriction, larger

cavitation clusters grow and theoretically could perform better than an orifice [62,63]. A study that

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used a gradient orifice (Figure 2), hydrodynamically similar to a venturi, demonstrated that the

performed was more efficient (CV=0.033) than orifice plates in terms of COD reduction and BI
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enhancement. High BI enhancement has been reported for a slit venturi, with a final BI of up to

0.57. Slit venturi tubes have also been successfully tested as a pre-treatment for actual biological
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oxidation processes and demonstrated superior performance over circular venturi or orifices

[19,44,56].
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2.2.3. Initial COD and dilution

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The hydroxyl radicals generated in an HC reactor, are highly oxidizing and have a redox potential
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of 2.8 eV and can non-selectively target any pollutant in order to mineralize them. Furthermore,

better utilization of these hydroxyl radicals can take place by increasing the interaction with the

pollutant compounds due to micro-mixing, microstreaming, micro-turbulence, cavity-implosion in

the fluid medium. It is well established that waters with lower pollutant concentration are better

treated with HC. Lower pollutant concentrations will alter the probability of pollutant interactions
 16

with the oxidizing radicals. Dilution of wastewater has often been reported to alter the degradation

efficiency, and biodegradability in the cases of wastewaters with high organic and inorganic

loading. While it is not possible to compare different wastewaters with different initial CODs due

to the complex nature of the solution, many studies use dilution to report an increase in

degradation efficiencies. Almost all studies that report dilution observed higher extent of COD

reduction but the change in biodegradability was only slight. It is evident that dilution helps in

reducing the pollutant loading thereby increasing the efficiency of degradation but there is no

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selective degradation of non-biodegradable compounds. The fact that in most cases, BI remains

almost the same demonstrates that there is equal oxidation of COD and BOD content in the

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wastewater. For example, for distillery wastewater [58] dilution of up to 50% increased COD

reduction from 32 to 48% but did not change the biodegradability to a considerable extent. Similar

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observations were reported for tannery wastewater effluent and vegetable oil refinery wastewater
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[48,52]. The drawback of diluting is the possibility of higher cost of process, since a 50% diluted

sample will have to be treated twice as compared to the original sample for the same quantity
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processed. Additionally, diluting with clean municipal water for the purpose of generating more

treated water post treatment could be controversial.

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2.2.4. Temperature
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Temperature becomes a crucial parameter in cavitation-based processes due to its effect on liquid

evaporation pressure. Higher temperatures have been studied to increase the number of
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cavitation bubbles. Although, if the temperature is too high, due the higher vapor pressure of the

liquid, the vapor content in the cavities becomes too large leading to cushioning of the cavity

implosion [64]. Generally, most studies have reported that an optimal temperature exists for

highest activity in hydrodynamic cavitation. The existence of an optimal may not apply to all the
 17

applications and also the optimum value will depend on the specific application, making the

requirement of laboratory-scale studies for specific application very important.

A study comparing three temperatures: 20, 30 and 40⁰C for oil refinery wastewater found that

lowering the temperature aids in the formation of higher cavities and increases the performance,

not only in terms of extent of COD reduction, but also in the rate of reaction and BI improvement

[52]. This was in agreement with reports found in literature for cavitation-based water treatment

[57,65]. The same three temperatures for fish processing wastewater, yielded exactly opposite

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results [53]. Highest temperature showed the best rate and highest extent of COD reduction,

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although no difference in BI was reported. Even though the results were slightly contradictory, the

latter study only showed slight improvement at higher temperatures. This is most probably due to

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ineffective selection of pressure and pH. Additionally, the orifice geometries differed in both

studies. Also, the trade-off between the two contradictory processes affect the optimum
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temperature: (1) Reaction kinetics are favored at high temperatures (2) Higher vapor pressure at

high temperatures decreases cavitational efficiency. In case of only slight changes in

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temperature, it is optimum to choose the room temperature, to avoid the use of heat exchangers.

Most studies in Table 1 do not report the operating temperature as a parameter, further
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complicating the discussion specifically for BI improvement. Higher temperatures may often yield

slightly better degradation efficiencies but offer a tradeoff with respect to heating and cooling
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costs. Biological processes can be inefficient to high temperature feeds due to loss of microbial

activity at temperatures above 40⁰C. In general, it is recommended to use the ambient conditions
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or temperature favoring the discharge conditions.

2.2.5. pH

Hydrogen ion activity and pH are also important factors for consideration when treating

wastewater. Optimum pH conditions can improve the efficiency by more than 50% and is often to

be selected after detailed experimental studies. Optimum pH can be generalized for certain
 18

groups of compounds like aromatic amines, certain azo dyes but for real wastewaters,

experiments relating to pH changes are necessary. Although, many studies regarding the

application of cavitation as a pre-treatment for biological oxidation, do not study this parameter

[58,66], it has been highlighted in several reviews, that study of pH is necessary for cavitation-

based processes [57]. Most organic compounds are efficiency degraded under acidic conditions

due to the higher dissociation of peroxide in water, as well as lower recombination of radicals in

acidic conditions [57,67,68].

of
Most studies with respect to real wastewater treatment samples have been carried out at the

ro
original solution pH, which could vary drastically based on the contents. Very few studies that

report combination with biological treatment or study biodegradability have reported an effect of

-p
pH. The optimum pH range for tannery wastewaters, fish processing wastewaters range between

6 and 7.5. Studies on pH adjustment for these wastewaters did not yield enhanced results [48].
re
For a recent study on vegetable oil refinery wastewater, highest BI enhancement was obtained

for a pH of 4 [52]. Additionally, there is always a need for pH adjustment before biological
lP

oxidation. In such cases of a low pH yielding optimum BI enhancement, a pH adjustment tank

would be needed twice, before and after the cavitating unit, shifting the focus to higher capital and
na

operating costs of treatment. The optimum pH for biological processes may vary between 6.0 to

8.0 and the use of wastewater at low pH of 2-3 may cause microfaunal degradation, highly
ur

reducing the efficacy of wastewater treatment [69]. Highly alkaline pH may cause corrosion or

precipitation of metals in the wastewater. It is again recommended to use pH suitable for biological
Jo

oxidation also in the case of cavitation pretreatment unless a very significant effect of pH is seen

in the cavitation treatment justifying the higher costs required for pH adjustment.

2.2.6. Ultrasound

The reports on acoustic cavitation or sonochemical pre-treatment were very common before

2015. For example, in one of the prior studies, the use of 120 W and 20 KHz ultrasonic bath was
 19

reported for little-to-none COD reduction and an increase in biodegradability from 20 to up to 40%

[70]. One of the more recent studies with a 22 KHz US horn for treatment of benzene, toluene,

naphthalene and xylene (BTNX) wastewater (Table 1) provided detailed and in-depth analysis of

biodegradability indices at various operating conditions and addition of Fenton’s reagent [71].

Most studies on the use of ultrasonic cavitation for wastewater treatment, even though are scarce,

only report COD reductions. There have not been many studies on use of ultrasound as pre-

treatment for biological oxidation. On the contrary, there have been many studies on the use of

of
ultrasound for sludge pre-treatment. More recent literature has been on the use of combined

oxidation processes i.e. ultrasound with peroxymonosulfate or Fenton processes for treatment of

ro
real industrial wastewater [72–74]. The reader is directed to other critically reviewed reports on

the use of ultrasound for biological applications [75]. In summary, most common ultrasonic

-p
treatment studies are carried out at 20 kHz operating frequency but have been reported to be
re
highly cost intensive. Ultrasonic treatment can cost as much as 20 times that of conventional

advanced oxidation processes and up to 40 times that of hydrodynamic cavitation [18,76]. It is

lP

important to understand that ultrasound often presents issues in scale-up and economic viability

and has been generally regarded as an effective way to pre-assess whether hydrodynamic
na

cavitation can be used. The recent availability of wide number of studies on hydrodynamic

cavitation makes ultrasound less promising as a technology of future.

ur

The study is also promising as a pre-treatment to aerobic oxidation. It is important to understand

that ultrasound often presents issues in scale-up and economic viability and has been generally
Jo

regarded as an effective way to pre-assess whether hydrodynamic cavitation can be used. The

recent availability of wide number of studies on hydrodynamic cavitation makes ultrasound less

promising as a technology of future.

 20

2.2.7. Addition of oxidants/chemicals

The most common oxidant added in combination with cavitation is hydrogen peroxide. The

addition of hydrogen peroxide has always improved both the COD reduction and biodegradability

for all types of wastewaters. Higher H2O2 loading till an optimum yields higher COD reduction due

to the abundance of hydroxyl radicals. It is again important to note that much higher peroxide

loadings lead to residual peroxide in the wastewater hampering and inhibiting the following

biological process, thus establishing the optimum is important. Nonetheless the combination

of
seems to be giving significant intensification effects. For example, for vegetable oil refinery

wastewater the increase of H2O2 loading from 20 to 30 g L-1 lead to an increase in COD reduction

ro
from 68 to 72% and BI from 0.60 to 0.72 [52]. Similar results were observed for fish processing

wastewater and optimum loading of 15 g L-1 yielded a very high BI of 0.93. Such a high BI would

-p
lead to a very efficient biological oxidation process [47].
re
Similar effective combinations have also been reported for other AOPs. For example, HC +

Fenton’s reagent process reported by Saxena et al., 2018 demonstrated 75% lower energy
lP

requirement and cost along with enhanced degradation as compared to individual HC process

[46].Combination of UV with hydrogen peroxide has also been reported for enhanced
na

degradation. Photocatalysis with TiO2 in combination with cavitation lead to an increase in BI up

to 0.98 [52]. The drawback of TiO2 processes are longer degradation times. In comparison to
ur

hydrogen peroxide and ozone, ozone leads to lower COD reduction and lower BI improvement

as compared to hydrogen peroxide [77]. The drawback of almost all studies are that synergistic
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indices have not been reported for combinations i.e. it is important to also calculate the efficiency

of ‘only-H2O2’ and ‘only-ozone’ processes to compare it to cavitation. In general, high synergy

indices have been reported in the past for cavitation in combinations with AOPs [24,78,79] and

may lead to biodegradability improvement as well. The addition of oxidants can be promising if

the biodegradability improvement is at least more than 20% as compared to ‘cavitation-only’

 21

considering the additional cost of additives. Also considering the operating and capital costs,

combination with hydrogen peroxide looks more promising followed by Fenton’s reagent and then

ozone or UV based photocatalytic oxidation.

3. Wastewater sludge pre-treatment

The three main types of waste sludge are (1) primary sludge produced through mechanical

of
treatments, is easily biodegradable due to digestible fats and carbohydrates, (2) Waste activated

sludge (WAS) from biological wastewater treatment, and (3) digested sludge, which is the residual

ro
biomass after the anaerobic digestion [5]. Anaerobic digestion is a slow and complex process,

where hydrolysis is the rate limiting step for certain substrates, thereby requiring a pre-treatment

-p
for sludge. There are various methods for sludge pre-treatment under the category of mechanical,
re
chemical or electrical methods [34]. Cavitation has found to be promising as a pre-treatment

method, due the time and power required as well as the ease of process [31]. The following
lP

sections review various metrics that have been analyzed for sludge pre-treatment studies that are

divided into physical, chemical and biological changes in the sludge. Further, the review reports

the effect of certain important parameters that affect the cavitation process specific to the
na

application as sludge pre-treatment.

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3.1. Metrics of importance

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Physical changes

3.1.1. Particle size reduction

Particle size reduction can be considered one of the most important physical parameters for

analysis of sludge disintegration or modification. Cavitation has been vastly reported to be

effective in decreasing the particle size of sludge and thereby to disrupt the architectural stability
 22

of flocs. The particle size reduction is most commonly, maximum during the initial few minutes of

cavitation exposure [80,81], thus establishing the optimum treatment time is important. For

ultrasonic sludge treatment, the disintegration depends on the ultrasonic power and density. A

study demonstrated that the structure of the flocs remained undisturbed at 0.11 W mL-1 while at

0.33 W mL-1, there was sufficient disintegration observed [82]. All the studies on ultrasound show

the presence of critical power, only beyond which size reduction is observed [83]. Sludge flocs

are disintegrated under optimum conditions under an average of 20 min, though in recent studies,

of
very high size reduction was observed within the first 10 minutes [80,84]. Beyond the initial size

reduction, there have been contradicting results on re-flocculation and related-reverse effects

ro
[85]. With respect to energy dosage, an almost perfect correlation (R2=0.996) has been

demonstrated for particle size reduction [86]. The use of hydrodynamic cavitation has been

-p
scarcely reported for particle size reduction. Many studies on sludge pre-treatment have ignored
re
particle size reduction and have only focused on COD changes and biomethane production

potential (Table 3). In the few studies that report particle sizes, effects similar to ultrasound have
lP

been demonstrated [87,88]. The initial size reduction is high and slightly more than 30% size

reduction can be obtained, depending on the inlet pressure and HC geometry [88,89]. In both
na

cases of cavitation, particle size reduction is easier when the floc size is above 4.4 to 5 μm. Larger

flocs are easier to disintegrate for cell lysis due to weaker binding forces [83,90].
ur

3.1.2. Sludge solubilization and dewaterability

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Pre-treatment by cavitation leads to sludge mass reduction due to organic content solubilization

that is either measured in terms of decrease in dissolved or suspended solids (SS) in the sludge

or as an increase of soluble COD in the liquid medium [91]. SS reduction has been reported to be

linear with US or HC duration i.e. stable sludge disintegration and continuous cell lysis [91,92].

The energy or power input required for maximum sludge solubilization differs vastly with each
 23

study, indicating that along with US or HC parameters, it also strongly depends on the sludge

properties. While up to 50% SS reduction has been reported with US for WAS, only up to 10%

has been reported for HC [93]. SS can be effectively reduced at typical energy input between 500

to 30,000 KJ kgTS-1 [86]. There has been a general disagreement between importance of

measuring either SS, VS, or TS in various studies. For example, it is reported that shortening the

hydrolysis process or increasing methane production in anaerobic digestion requires a higher

reduction in VS rather than TS, making the calculation of VS more important [94,95].

of
Dewaterability, or separation of waste from the sludge is yet another physical parameter that is

ro
affected by cavitation, although not extensively reported like particle size analysis. As sludge floc

size decreases, their water absorption capacity increases thereby slowing the release of water

-p
from the sludge [30]. There have been studies that report that the effect of released EPS on

sludge dewaterability is much higher than the effect of particle size on dewaterability [96].
re
Capillary suction time (CST) and the specific resistance to filtration (SRF) are used parameters

to assess dewaterability. For both US and HC, contradictory results regarding dewaterability have
lP

been reported [87,97,98]. For US, dewaterability improves for short US irradiation duration and

low energy input while deteriorates for longer US runs [85]. Effects for HC are similar to those of
na

US [87]. Dewaterability can be better at acidic pH values or when combined with Fenton’s reagent

[87,99]. Thus, again it is important to select the best treatment conditions in terms of time of
ur

treatment and pH for maximizing the beneficial effects.

3.1.3. Settleability
Jo

Sludge settleability is rarely reported as a parameter by itself, although several times reported

along with parameters like dewaterability and particle size (Table 3). Settling velocity is often

calculated during the operation of wastewater treatment plants to control sludge bulking [86].

Nether US nor HC enhances sludge settleability [91,100,101]. Due to particle size reduction,

formation of smaller flocs, and increase of EPS in the solution sludge settleability deteriorates
 24

[96]. It is directly related to turbidity of sludge, which increases as broken particles release into

the supernatant. As high as 136% increase in solution turbidity has been recorded for

hydrodynamic cavitation at optimum conditions [91]. The increase in TS content and turbidity

provides for a higher viscosity of sludge. The cavitation effects may be slowed down due to higher

viscosity. Higher TS increases collision between flocs and particles, theoretically leading to

greater disintegration. The positive and negative effects counteract, leading to specific effects

seen in each case [99].

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4.1.4 Chemical Changes

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4.1.4.1 Degree of disintegration (DDCOD) and SCOD

Organic content, cellular matter and extracellular matter including EPS are disintegrated due to

-p
the physical and chemical effects of cavitation, releasing them into the liquid medium [102].
re
Solubilization of such organic matter increases the soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) of

the sludge. SCOD has been used widely and is one of the most important parameters besides
lP

particle size to assess the pre-treatment efficiency (Table 4). All the studies demonstrating US or

HC pre-treatment unanimously show an increase in SCOD. The magnitude of increase strongly

depends on US power, HC pressure and duration. Degree of disintegration (DDCOD) is also used
na

to assess the efficiency of increase in SCOD. Some studies measure DDCOD while some only

report SCOD. One of the methods to calculate DDCOD is given in eq. (2) [103].
ur

𝑆𝐶𝑂𝐷𝑈𝑆/𝐻𝐶 −𝑆𝐶𝑂𝐷0
𝐷𝐷𝐶𝑂𝐷 = × 100 % … (2)
𝑇𝐶𝑂𝐷−𝑆𝐶𝑂𝐷0
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Where SCODUS/HC is the soluble COD after the cavitation treatment, SCOD0 is the initial COD and

TCOD is the total COD. The equation gives an estimate of the amount of COD that has increased

after the treatment with respect to the total COD content.

 25

It is common to observe an increase in degree of disintegration by up to 50% for US processes

[104–106]. Recent studies with improved performances report up to 90% degree of disintegration,

offering a great promise as a pre-treatment [106]. The high degree of disintegration goes hand in

hand with highest particle size reduction and increased biomethane production potential [97]. With

regards to SCOD, resent studies show from 23 to 72 times increase [90,100]. In HC pre-treatment,

the SCOD increment and DDCOD is generally lesser than recent sonochemical studies. At optimum

conditions, up to 50 to 60% DDCOD and more than 20% increase in SCOD has been observed for

of
HC [88,107,108]. It is important to note however that the scalability of operation as well as energy

efficiency will be higher for the case of HC as compared to ultrasound.

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4.1.4.2 Nucleic acid and protein assessment

-p
Under US and HC conditions, cell lysis leads to continuous solubilization of cellular and

extracellular substances into the liquid phase, this includes nucleic acids and protein from the
re
cells [109]. Post 2009 [86], none of the studies measured proteins and nucleic acids as the part

of their analysis and neither are these widely accepted as appropriate metrics for disintegration.
lP

Besides, the increment in protein due to the disintegration of DNA material is not a suitable

parameter since it will directly relate to a decrease in microbial activity.

na

4.1.4.3 Ammonia and nitrogen assessment

Nitrogen concentration and total ammonia-nitrogen increases with cell lysis due to HC and US
ur

treatment (Table 4). As opposed to protein and nucleic acid increment, non-biological contribution
Jo

to total ammonia nitrogen is also high and hence, used as a parameter to assess disintegration

efficiency [13]. Organic nitrogen content in sludge decreases and that in the liquid medium

increases with pre-treatment [95]. However, to our knowledge any study on correlation of how

organic nitrogen or ammonia-nitrogen affects anaerobic digestion and what is the non-biological

contribution part to organic and ammonia-nitrogen is yet to be reported. It has been recently
 26

observed that free ammonia instead of ammonium acts as an inhibitor to the process and should

be considered while developing pre-treatment strategies [110]. Additionally, in cavitation there

have been reports on increment of nitrate along with ammonia-nitrogen [86] though its effects on

the methane yield enhancement were not reported.

4.1.4.4 Biochemical methane production

Biochemical methane production is the only parameter which directly analyses the desired

of
application of the pre-treated sludge rather than the physical and chemical changes occurring in

the sludge. However, even though it is an important parameter, some studies on US do not report

ro
the metric. The principal aim of pre-treatment is to enhance sludge biodegradability in anaerobic

digestion that directly favors higher methane production, along with lower retention times. Studies

-p
have shown that residence time required for similar biogas production decreases, and with the

same residence times, up to 2.2 times higher biogas yield can be obtained with US [111,112].
re
Most commonly studies show a 40 to 50% increase in biomethane production potential in pre-

treated sludge [104,106]. Similar results have been observed for HC pre-treatment [91,113].
lP

Using a rotor and stator assembly lead to up to 100% increase in biogas production as compared

to studies using circular or slit venturis [114]. In both HC and US, the percentage of increment of
na

biomethane potential, most commonly agreed with the percentage of increment in soluble COD

(SCOD). It can be hence generalized that SCOD, is an important assessment in terms of sludge
ur

disintegration.

4.1.5 Biological changes in terms of Microbial activity

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The goal of sludge modification and disintegration is to open up the cell membranes leading to

cell lysis thereby aiding in faster anaerobic digestion. Methanogens are responsible for producing

methane in anaerobic digestion and dominate in growth during the process. Cavitation

pretreatment has been reported to affect the microbial growth and activity ultimately affecting the
 27

yields. For example. in digestion devices at 20 days of residence time, with cavitated sludge,

Thauera, Anaerolineaceae_uncultured, Caldilineaceae_uncultured and vadinHA17_norank were

the most dominant bacterial genus found [100]. In both pre-treated and non-pre-treated samples,

Methanocorpusculum and Methanosaeta were dominant alternatively. While in cavitated

samples, the relative abundance of Methanocorpusculum reduced suddenly after a while and

substrate changed from hydrogen to acetic acid [100].

The microbial analysis can also be done by analyzing the oxygen utilization rate (OUR) [115]. The

of
most common observation is that microbial activity initially slightly increases when the DD COD is

ro
about 20% (stage 1), and further disruption of cells, leading to higher solubilization and DD COD,

leads to a decrease in microbial activity (stage 2) and inhibits/damages microbes. DD OUR is the

-p
degree of inactivation and can go up to 95% (with 35% DDCOD) highly inhibiting cell metabolism

[92]. Careful consideration of the two stages of microbial lysis and disruption is needed to enhance
re
the efficiency of anerobic digestion. The change in the stages can be analyzed by a sudden rise

in DDOUR after the first stage of cell lysis [30]. Analysis clearly reveals the importance of
lP

optimization of the application of cavitation for maximizing the effects.

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3.2. Effect of important parameters

3.2.1. US frequency
ur

Ultrasound frequency significantly alters the critical size of cavity bubble and its respective

physical and chemical effects as recognized in various studies and reviews [15,67]. Lower
Jo

frequencies (16 to 50 KHz) are associated with more violent bubble collapse favoring physical or

mechanical effects [116]. Higher frequencies (> 100 KHz) lead to less violent and smaller cavities,

but more cavitation events producing more hydroxyl radicals and often harnessed for the chemical

effects related to cavitation [117]. In sludge pre-treatment, only mechanical disruption by

ultrasound is predominantly required. At very high frequencies, degree of disintegration

 28

decreases indicating that chemical effects are not dominant in the mechanism [118]. Most of the

studies are carried out in the rage of 20-22 KHz frequency (Table 3,4). Lowering the frequency

further up to 12 KHz also yielded the required degree of disintegration [105]. Depending on the

availability of equipment, frequency can be lowered though most ultrasound equipment are

typically available around 20 kHz.

3.2.2. US power

of
In terms of costs of operation and scaling up for a full-scale process, ultrasonic power is the most

important consideration and high power may be detrimental for process costs. Also, it is generally

ro
agreed that increasing power and intensity leads to higher physical and chemical effects.

Increasing the power further, beyond a limit may lead to formation of cavity coalescence and cloud

-p
formation [119]. Most studies report an improvement in SCOD increment with increasing the

ultrasonic power. For example, with an increase in power from 1 to 2.7 W mL-1 the disintegration
re
and flocculant extraction improved almost linearly [120]. Although, a study showed that there was

no difference in SCOD and particle size for 2 and 3 W mL-1 indicating that there is an optimum
lP

[121], which in some cases might be more than the studied power ranges. This agrees with other

studies that show an optimum value between 2 and 3 W mL-1 for waste activated sludge
na

[120,122]. Le at al., 2015 stated that high power-short time process can be used for municipal

sludge while low power-long time process may be used for industrial sludge [30]. The composition
ur

of sludge (municipal or industrial) plays an important part in choosing the power of operation.

More settled bacteria will need to be broken down by a low power while presence of fibrous
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constituents (resistant to disruption) may require higher power.

3.2.3. Time

With respect to duration of treatment, particle size reduction is typically observed very quickly

within the initial 15 minutes for both US and HC treatment (Table 3, 4 and 5). The maximum
 29

particle size reduction is observed within the initial 15 minutes in most studies with HC or US

[81,89], in some cases within the initial 5 minutes of irradiation [90]. A recent study revealed that

SCOD increased 23 times within 80 minutes for 0.5 W mL-1 and there was no change beyond 80

minutes [100]. In another study for 2 W mL-1, the time for 8-times increment in SCOD was 60

minutes and beyond 60 minutes, the SCOD curve plateaued [81]. At the same power density,

other recent studies observed more than twice the increase in SCOD in 15 to 20 minutes

[123,124]. It is evident that at higher power density, SCOD increase is recorded in lower time

of
duration but for higher increase in SCOD, lower power density may be applied for longer times.

Most studies for HC report a treatment duration of 30 to 60 minutes for a significant increase in

ro
SCOD. Ultrasound may be faster in treatment than HC but can be cost prohibitive at the same

time.

-p
For hydrodynamic cavitation, duration of treatment has been found to be extremely crucial.
re
Excess treatment can deteriorate the sludge thereby rendering the pre-treatment useless. A study

showed that the disintegration of sludge by HC can be divided into two parts. In the first stage,
lP

the SCOD increased with cell lysis and organic matter solubilized. In this case, microbial activity

enhanced due to opening of the cellular walls. Excessive cavitation-based disruption beyond a
na

certain time lead to a second stage where the whole cells were damaged. Complete cell damage

lead to intracellular solubilization, SCOD increased sharply but microbial activity and biomethane
ur

potential went down. This stage also lead to unnecessary and excess energy consumption [99].

It is thus important to conclude that selection of optimum treatment time would be an important
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criterion for getting desired intensification in cost effective manner.

3.2.4. Temperature

It is well known that bacterial growth and activity is the highest at temperatures around 40⁰C. In

terms of sludge disintegration followed by application in an anaerobic digestor, increasing sludge

temperature to between 30 and 40⁰C increases the efficiency of treatment [115,125]. Further,
 30

increasing the temperature to 60⁰C can enhance sludge solubilization [82]. This is however

contradictory to several studies where cavitational intensity is reported to be higher at lower

temperatures. On the other hand, temperature effect is dominant only when the duration of

process (either HC or US) is more than 20 minutes. For an efficient scale-up it is not required to

increase the temperature at the start of the operation. Temperature rises following the continuous

cavitation phenomenon, and subsequently needs to be controlled to the desired temperature (30-

40⁰C in this case) by using a cooling jacket. Maintaining temperature around this range definitely

of
would give a best performance as no external heating will be required and also best performance

will be obtained in the post processing.

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3.2.5. HC Pressure

-p
Most studies with only-HC pre-treatment of bio-sludge have reported optimized pressures

between 2 and 4 bars [87,89,99] (Table 5). Although, two studies report pressures of 10.25 and
re
12 bars respectively for up to 30% increase in biogas yield, but the former study used mixed
lP

wastewater-sludge samples while the latter one was an alkali-hydrolyzed process [91,93].There

is no generalized agreement for optimized pressure along with cavitation numbers for the

treatment of waste activated sludge. In each study, lower cavitation numbers anywhere between
na

0.07 and 0.15 have been reported to enhance the disintegration of sludge. Based on the studies

reported, higher disintegration is achieved in a shorter duration at higher pressures. Alternatively,

ur

if same energy supplied is considered, lower pressures can also give equal amount of

disintegration if the sludge is processed for more than an hour [108]. It should be noted that very
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high cavitating effects will lead to damage of intracellular matter, lowering the possible biogas

yield. With respect to scale-up, it is preferential to keep the pressures as low as possible, between

2 and 3 bars for most efficient cell lysis.

 31

3.2.6. HC geometry

Cavitation device geometry has a great deal of effects on the process (Table 5). The different HC

devices used for sludge treatment are orifices with different dimensions, circular and slit venturi,

rotation generator, swirling jet assembly, and stator and rotor assembly (Figure 2). In a unique

study with wheat straw biomass, rotor and stator assembly was demonstrated to be superior to

venturi or orifices [114]. Otherwise, comparing the SCOD increment and biogas production in

various assemblies, it is difficult to generalize the effect of each type of device. As such, there

of
haven’t been studies that integrate the use of two or more devices and compare them in one

report. Venturi and orifice assembly may be more economically viable than other complex

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assemblies. Orifice plates with optimized geometries, α and β0 can result in up to more than 50%

degree of disintegration [108]. For venturi and orifices both, smaller throat diameters (up to 1.4

-p
mm) may be recommended based on the published studies [126]. Smaller throat diameters lead
re
to a higher-pressure gradient and higher disruption. The effect of parameter α reported in a study

demonstrated that smaller orifices may lead to better efficiencies [127]. A unique geometry, called
lP

swirling jet or ecowirl reactor was reported where cavities are generated in a multi-dimensional

vortex generator with a pre-swirling chamber followed by an orifice plate and collision plate for
na

pressure recovery. This reactor also demonstrated performance similar to orifice plate cavitation

reactor in terms of DDCOD [99] (Figure 2). Other hydrodynamic cavitation assemblies include a

rotor and stator assembly, a rotation generator and vortex-cavitation, which have all been
ur

efficiently used for sludge pre-treatment (Figure 2, Table 5). Additionally, lower cavitation number
Jo

is necessary for higher cavitational effects, which is consistent with many studies on sludge

disintegration.
 32

4. Cost estimation and application

Conventional biological oxidation processes are comparatively less expensive than advanced

oxidation processes. Even though, biological oxidation is an economically viable option, it is

limited by the biodegradability potential of the effluent. Many effluents consist of a large amount

of recalcitrant and persistent pollutants that cannot be processed by biological oxidation,

additionally could inhibit the bacterial activity [128]. Considering the fact that pre-treatment for

improvement in biodegradability is necessary for such effluents, cavitation is very promising due

of
to its low cost. Other chemical and advanced oxidation processes have been widely reported for

ro
BI improvement and sludge treatment [129–131], but may present drawbacks like additional

sludge production in Fenton’s process, higher costs than cavitation and inhibition of biomass due

-p
to reactive radicals. Many studies have performed detailed cost analysis and comparison that

show cavitation can be an attractive alternative to other oxidation processes [18,24,79]. In terms
re
of comparison of cavitation and biological oxidation, there is a tradeoff between the cost of the

process and efficiency of the treatment (Table 6). For example, the cost of biological treatment is
lP

an order of magnitude lower than cavitation but is often accompanied with very low degradation

efficiencies [56]. Pre-treatment is necessary in such cases because the goal of degradation
na

precedes lowering the cost of treatment. Additionally, combination of HC with other conventional

advanced oxidation processes like ozonation is also recommended. HC + AOPs in some cases,
ur

present a higher increase in biodegradability along with lowered costs [56].

It is important to consider that the characteristics of wastewater and waste sludge affect the
Jo

energetics of cavitation pre-treatment. This includes the location of HC reactor in the treatment

scheme i.e. before and after removal of solids/pre-primary treatment. The presence of solids in

wastewater will reduce the efficiency of cavitation by more than 50% [132]. The viscosity of

wastewater and sludge also influences the nuclei distribution and bubble dynamics. Regardless

of whether the water of sludge behave as Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluids, an increase in

 33

viscosity of the medium will reduce the efficiency of cavitation. The effect is observed due to

reduction in growth and collapse of bubbles due to additional resistance from the liquid medium

[133,134]. The cost of operation will be higher if the medium is more viscous. The effect of dilution

discussed earlier plays an important role in reducing this increased energetic cost while giving

the required results. In sludge, presence of TS, TSS and dry matter content increases the viscosity

due to inter and intra-molecular interactions [134], ultimately increasing the power consumption

and cost. In contrast, the use of HC will decrease the viscosity of sludge and wastewater during

of
the process by breaking molecular bonds within the medium. The decrease in viscosity during

cavitation improves slightly, the efficiency of the process [133].

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In terms of pre-treatment for anaerobic digestion, digestion of HC pre-treated sludge not only

-p
broke even with respect to cost needed for HC pumping but produced 3.5 to 9 times higher energy

than the pre-treatment consumed [113]. Additionally, the volume of sludge for disposal decreased
re
due to the pre-treatment. Combination of HC pre-treatments for biological oxidation and anaerobic

digestion in the same treatment plant can help not only in breaking even with the cost of pre-
lP

treatment but also with producing energy, higher extents of COD reduction and lesser sludge

disposal issues (figure 3). It has been demonstrated that cavitation also assists in short chain fatty
na

acids (SCFA) yields in anaerobic digestion, thereby allowing for nutrient recovery downstream of

the digestor [124]. This integrated process also applies to ‘nutrient removal-enhanced recovery’
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concept in WWTPs (Figure 3). A proper design of a continuous-flow cavitation process will be a

promising technique for application in WWTPs if the plant becomes energy-positive. According to
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the report by Wang et al., 2019, concepts similar to these can save up to $3.5 million annually for

a treatment plant with 105 m3 d-1, while using ultrasound-based cavitation [124]. Additionally, it is

presumed that the use of hydrodynamic cavitation (which has been proved to be orders of

magnitude cheaper to ultrasound) can be much more cost saving and sustainable.
 34

5. Outlook and Future research

It is highly recommended that future studies do not ignore certain important parameters and

metrics. Some previously published reports lack data as evidence to prove efficient increase in

biodegradability and sludge disintegration. Optimization based on all process parameters ca drive

the industrial application to the next level. Further, temperature and pH need to be considered on

a priority basis, which has been ignored in many reports.

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Biological oxidation process is inevitably an order of magnitude cheaper than advanced oxidation

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processes including cavitation. It should be carefully studied if certain wastewater needs pre-

treatment. In some cases, modification or change of choice of biomass might be enough to

-p
increase the efficiency. Alternative biological processes like biofilm processes or Annamox

processes also need to be incorporated into pre-treatment studies.

re
Studies need to report the mechanism of degradation to more closely analyze which bio refractory

compounds need degradation. Such data can drive optimization of research to selectively
lP

degrade large compounds. Proper synergy in mechanisms between cavitation, ozone, Fenton

and photocatalysis will lead to a deeper understanding on the processes.

na

For sludge treatment, more studies on hydrodynamic cavitation in combination of oxidants need

to be targeted There is a general dearth of data on hydrodynamic cavitation while ultrasound has
ur

been reported significantly more than hydrodynamic cavitation.

Jo

There is no data on the effect of ultrasound duty-cycle and signal type for sludge disintegration

process. Such studies are recommended as it can help in achieving a cost effective operation.

Designing of a continuous flow system is necessary to apply the processes on an industrial scale.

Large quantity of wastewater and sludge can be processed in a semi-batch or continuous process

but data on such processes are not available in literature. It is important to develop continuous
 35

process especially for the large scale operation. For example, a shift from 5 L batch process to

more than 0.5 MGD capacity cavitation unit may decrease the number of passes and enhance

the efficiency of the pre-treatment.

A comprehensive assessment of the pre-treatment process with respect to life cycle assessment

and techno-economic analysis of pilot-scale treatment systems is needed for the process to have

commercial viability.

of
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6. Conclusions

Wastewater pre-treatment
-p
re
Optimum activity of biodegradation is ensured only if wastewater is pre-treated and bio-refractory

constituents are degraded prior to biological oxidation. Cavitation in combination with oxidants
lP

offers promising, sustainable and economic pre-treatment opportunities.

It is crucial that along with enhancement of biodegradability index, COD also reduces
na

substantially, reducing the load on biological oxidation. A biodegradable index of at least 0.4 is

required, although many studies have reported an increase of more than 0.5 and in some cases
ur

up to 0.8 to 1. Careful selection of operating conditions and additives is crucial in enhancing the

biodegradability at the same time maintaining the cost of pretreatment at minimum possible so
Jo

that overall economic operation is achieved.

Cavitation along with Fenton or hydrogen peroxide has been reported to increase the COD

reduction to up to 50 -75 %. A COD reduction of at least 50 % is recommended for the commercial

applicability of the pre-treatment. The general consensus on cavitation number lies between 0.07
 36

and 0.2, optimum cavitation number in most cases, yielded higher efficiency. Additionally,

geometry of orifice and venturi devices substantially affects the performance.

Waste sludge pre-treatment

The most important metrics to be analyzed are particle size distribution and reduction, increase

in soluble COD or DDCOD and biomethane production potential, but is also necessary to

complement these with metrics like sludge solubility, dewaterability, and nitrogen content which

of
some reports lack evidence on.

Sludge disintegration by cavitation is a two-step process, initial mechanical disruption leads to

ro
cell lysis and cleavage of cell membranes, thereby increasing biomethane potential but excessive

disruption or agitation and long irradiation leads to cell damage and decrease in microbial activity.

-p
Hence, the process is highly time dependent. The process is most feasible at low ultrasound
re
frequencies and power and at low hydrodynamic cavitation pressures of 2-3 bars. In addition, an

optimum treatment time specific to the system must be selected.

lP

As a concluding remark, a treatment plant with hydrodynamic cavitation integrated as pre-

treatment for both biological oxidation and anaerobic digestion can improve the overall efficiency
na

of the system significantly. Such a system can produce low-COD effluents at the same time

increasing biomethane generation, ultimately being energy positive in nature. Such as system

can be termed as ‘nutrient removal-enhanced recovery-energy positive’ and can be very

ur

promising for commercial exploitation. The future studies should focus on continuous flow
Jo

systems at a pilot-scale along with techno-economic analysis for commercial viability.

Declaration of Interest

We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there
has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.
 37

We confirm that the manuscript has been read and approved by all named authors and that there are no
other persons who satisfied the criteria for authorship but are not listed. We further confirm that the order
of authors listed in the manuscript has been approved by all of us.

We confirm that we have given due consideration to the protection of intellectual property associated with
this work and that there are no impediments to publication, including the timing of publication, with
respect to intellectual property. In so doing we confirm that we have followed the regulations of our
institutions concerning intellectual property.

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Jo
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46
 47

of
Figure 1. Cavity formation and collapse in (A) acoustic and (B) hydrodynamic cavitation as a
function of pressure

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 48

of
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Figure 2. Various types of devices and geometries used in hydrodynamic cavitation for
wastewater and waste sludge pre-treatment (A) conventional venturi and orifice (B) swirling jet
cavitation (C) rotor and stator assembly (D) vortex-cavitation and (E) Rotation generator.
 49

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Figure 3. Suggested pre-treatment schemes for cavitation-based processes preceding biological

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oxidation and anaerobic digestion.

 50

Table 1. Compilation of several recent studies on cavitation-based pre-treatment of various

wastewater samples for biodegradability improvement

Compound/ Operating conditions BI BI Comments References

Wastewater initial final
Distillery 5 bar Pressure 0% dilution 0.14 0.24 Lower pressure is [58]
Wastewater and 150 suitable for reduction in
(Bio- minutes; toxicity as compared to
methanated) Venturi device; higher pressure, which is
6 L volume 25% 0.13 0.25 beneficial for
dilution enhancement of
biodegradability.
Increase in
13 bar 0% dilution 0.14 0.29 biodegradability

of
Pressure, 120 decreased the lag phase
minutes; venturi during methane
and 6 L volume generation.
25% 0.13 0.32

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dilution
Distillery Ultrasound bath -- -- Biodegradability was [70]
Wastewater 22 KHz, 120 W; measured as the initial
100 mL rate of COD reduction in

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aerobic treatment after
ultrasound pre-
treatment. COD
reduction was 40% in US
re
pre-treated sample
whereas it was 25% for
untreated sample. No
lP

costing analysis.
Landfill 7 bar inlet 1 hole 0.046 0.056 One hole orifice had the [66]
Leachate pressure; 30 L orifice; 30 lowest cavitation number
(Mature) volume passes (0.033) but the highest
5 hole 0.046 0.046 increase in
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orifice; 30 biodegradability. FTIR

passes analysis revealed that
increase in
9 hole 0.046 0.05
biodegradability index is
orifice; 10
directly related to the
passes
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formation of lower weight

compounds during
cavitation.
Brewery 7 bar inlet P and 0.074 0.091 Solubilization of [45]
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spent grain 30 passes; carbohydrates and

(with orifice plate limited degradation of
wastewater) lignin observed. The
increase in
biodegradability in this
case was due to the
physical effect of
cavitation rather than
chemical.
 51

Tannery 5 bar pressure; Alum dose 0.34 0.57 Alum coagulation [48]
effluent Slit venturi; 120 of 0.5 g L-1; followed by Cavitation.
minutes pH pH adjustment at
adjustment coagulation increases
Alum dose 0.38 0.45 cavitation efficiency.
of 2 g L-1; no Possible to further use
pH anaerobic digestion due
adjustment to high biodegradability.
No study on qualitative
50% 0.35 0.51 assessment of
Dilution wastewater.
Ultrasound 120 Alum dose 0.12 0.27
minutes; 20 of 0.5 g L-1;
KHz and 750 pH 4.5
W. adjustment

of
Alum dose 0.16 0.38
of 2 g L-1; no
pH
adjustment

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Tannery Venturi; 500 30°C 50% 0.33 0.43 pH between 6.5 and 7.5. [46]
Effluent KPa dilution Maximum reduction of
14.46% COD and 12.6%

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TOC along with a
30°C No 0.25 0.35 reduction in TDS and
dilution TSS. Wastewater
dilution did not enhance
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the HC degradation
efficiency and therefore it
is not feasible.
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Vegetable 3-hole orifice; 6 bar inlet 0.17 0.28 Biodegradability as a [52]

oil refinery 200 min; pH 7 Pressure ratio was studied for
effluent various conditions.
8 bar inlet 0.17 0.31
Addition of oxidants was
Pressure
studied as well.
8 bar Inlet; pH 7 20°C 0.17 0.32
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30°C 0.17 0.31

40°C 0.17 0.3

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20°C; pH 4 0.17 0.39

20°C; pH 7 0.17 0.31

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20°C; pH 10 0.17 0.3

 52

Fish Orifice plate 6 bar; 2 0.25 0.47 COD was reduced [47]
processing holes 3mm; from 13,180 mg/L to
wastewater 160 minutes 7568 mg/L. Similar BI
increase for
6 bar; 3 0.25 0.33 temperatures from 20
holes 3mm; to 40 °C. acidic pH had
40 minutes better BI increase (up
8 bar; 2 0.25 0.35 to 0.58 for pH 4). 120
holes 3mm; minutes also showed
160 minutes slightly similar results
8 bar; 3 0.25 0.55 to 160 minutes.
holes 3mm;
40 minutes
2 mm hole 4 bar 0.81 0.32 Even though [53]
orifice; 120 significant COD

of
minutes reduction was
9 bar 0.81 0.29 observed; BI
drastically reduced.

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BTNX US Horn; 120 Toluene 0.176 0.212 Detailed performance [71]
wastewater W; 22 KHz; 40 based on BI index.

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minutes Benzene 0.179 0.209 US/Fenton/stirring and
only Fenton oxidation
naphthalene 0.156 0.17 were found to be
feasible pretreatment
re
xylene 0.222 0.244 option

US Horn; 120 Toluene 0.178 0.455

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W; 22 KHz; 2.0
g L-1 H2O2; 3 g
L-1 Fe2+; 90 Benzene 0.176 1
minutes
naphthalene 0.156 0.62
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xylene 0.222 0.89

Bitumen HC; venturi; 8 360 minutes 0.42 0.4 Study in basic pH; [38]
Effluent bar Other oxidants like
peroxide and ozone
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studied; treatment
resulted in complete
removal of all
investigated
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oxygenated organic
compounds.
US; multiple 360 minutes 0.19 0.18 2-methyl cyclohexane [54]
transducers was removed; Alkaline
(1000 W total); pH process.
25 KHz
'complex' Venturi; 150 5 bar 0.168 0.27 High pressure was [135]
industrial minutes. idea; wet air oxidation
effluent was also studied.
13 bar 0.168 0.47
 53

Table 2. Hydraulic characterization example of orifice geometry for three different orifice plates.
[66].

Parameter Unit A B C
Number of – 1 5 9
holes
Diameter/linear mm 3 5×1 1
dimensions of
holes
Total area of mm2 7.0686 25 7.0686
holes
Cv cavitation – 0.033 0.2976 0.3852
number of

of
orifice plate
α mm−1 1.333 2.4 4
β0 – 0.0023 0.0082 0.0023

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Total perimeter mm 9.42 60 28.26
of holes
Orifice velocity m s−1 75.44 25.73 21.46

Flow rate L s−1 0.5333 0.6433 0.1517

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Table 3. Compilation of several studies on ultrasonic pre-treatment of sludge based on the effect
on physical parameters.

Sludge US Power Time Frequency Effect on the parameter Reference

(minutes)

Particle size

WAS 260 W (0.52 20 20 Highest disruption in initial few [83]

W mL-1) minutes

Primary 4 W mL-1 20 20 85% reduction in the first 20 minutes [84]

and

of
secondary
sludge
WAS 0-26000 kJ -- 20 Broke up smaller particles more [96]

ro
KgTS-1 efficiently than bigger ones
(Power and
Time
function)

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WAS 0.44 W mL-1 20-120 20 Size reduces to less than 3 μm in 20 [82]
minutes
Nitrogen 1.04 W mL-1 30 20 80-99% average reduction, [80]
re
sludge significantly within the initial two
minutes.
Secondary 0.2-1.5 W 60 20 Highest in initial 15 minutes [81]
sludge mL-1
lP

WAS 700-850 W in 30-60 20 Approximately 78% average [90]

1.7 to 10 L reduction. Initial 5-10 minute
showed maximum reduction. All
particles were about less than
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6.5um after sonication.

Sewage 7200 KJ L-1 28 Decrease in particle size; measured [101]

WAS in terms of dp10 and dp60. Highest
decrease for highest energy
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density.
WAS 0.7 - 32.9 KJ 20 Reduction by 89% after 60 min at 33 [136]
gTSS-1 (800 kJ gTSS−1. No significant effect after
mL) 5 min at 3.2 kJ gTSS−1. 78%
Jo

reduction after 60 min at 24.6 kJ

gTSS−1
WAS Up to 15000 20 Decrease when ultrasound power [102]
KJ g-1 TS than 1000 kJ gTSS−1. Reduction of
(500 mL) about 40% at 20 kJ L −1 of sludge.
More heterogeneous particle size
distribution observed.
WAS 300 W (4300 24 30% decrease in mean particle size. [97]
KJ Kg-1) Reduction up to 32 µm mean size.
 55

WAS 0.67-1 W mL- 4 to 5 20 Cut diameter (dp50) reduced 6.5 [137]

1 times with 2% TS

DWTS 0.03-0.033 W 15 68 and Average size reduced slightly from [98]

mL-1 160 40.50 to 30.52 for 68 KHz and 34 to
30.87 in 160 KHz.

WAS 0.4 KW L-1 + 40 Average particle size 50.25 µm to [104]

0.04 g L-1 24.52 for only US and 22.63 µm for
FeSO4.7H2O US+Fenton

of
WAS 1111 to 9999 5 to 45 20 Size reduction from about 270 to [138]
KJ L-1 110 μm for all US treatments.

ro
Total Solids

WAS 260 W (0.52 20 20 Highest disruption for TS below [83]

W mL-1) 2.9%
Primary
and
secondary
4 W mL-1 20 20

-p
If more than 3.6%, the effect
weakens
[84]
re
sludge
WAS 0-26000 kJ -- 20 ES of 1000 KJ kgTS-1 was optimum [96]
KgTS-1 for sludge settleability.
(Power and
lP

Time
function)

WAS 0.5 W mL-1 100 20 VS/TS did not change [100]

na

Sewage 7200 KJ L-1 28 No change [101]

WAS
WAS 0.67-1 W mL- 4 to 5 20 Higher TS of 4 and 6 % needed [137]
1 corresponding higher power
densities for same disruption.
ur

Dewaterability

WAS 0.44 W mL-1 20-120 20 CST increased at 0.33W mL-1 from [82]
Jo

197s to 490 s
WAS 0.5 W mL-1 100 20 Dewatering deteriorated [100]

Sewage 7200 KJ L-1 28 Decrease in CST with increase in [101]

WAS energy. Moderately high correlation.

WAS 300 W (4300 24 Improved dewaterability. [97]

KJ Kg-1)
DWTS 0.03-0.033 W 15 68 and Adverse effect: increased from 20 to [98]
mL-1 160 32.
 56

Table 4. Compilation of several studies on ultrasonic pre-treatment of sludge based on the effect
on chemical parameters.

Sludge US Power Time Frequenc Effect on the parameter Reference

(minutes y
)
SCOD and DDCOD
Primary 4 W mL-1 20 20 7.7 time increase in SCOD in 20 [84]
and minutes
secondary
sludge
WAS 0-26000 kJ -- 20 Up to 30 % increase [96]
KgTS-1 (SCOD/TCOD)
(Power and
Time

of
function)
WAS 0.44 W mL-1 20-120 20 20% COD transferred. [82]
Biodegradability increase from

ro
0.66 to 0.80.
WAS 0.5 W mL-1 100 20 SCOD increased by 23 times in [100]
80 minutes. No change after 80
minutes.

-p
Nitrogen 1.04 W mL-1 30 20 Reported increase for all sludge [80]
sludge types. Higher SCOD for higher
power.
Secondar 0.2-1.5 W 60 20 200 to 1600 mg L-1 increase in 60 [81]
re
y sludge mL-1 minutes. Highest for highest
power.
WAS 700-850 W 30-60 20 Up to 8 to 72 times increase in [90]
in 1.7 to 10 L SCOD in different runs. Sludge
lP

concentration had more impact

than US intensity. High
correlation with time and intensity.
Sewage 7200 KJ L-1 28 SCOD/TCOD increased from 6 to [101]
WAS up to 72% at Energy of 10800
na

KJ/L
WAS 0 to 3 W mL- 15 20 No difference between 2 and 3 W [121]
1 mL-1
Food 240 - 960 W 15 20 Higher disintegration at energy [139]
Waste L-1 (1 L) density greater than 480 W L−1
ur

with 15 min. Increase of COD

1.6–1.7 times after 15 min at 480
W L−1
WAS 0.5 - 1 W 30 20 Two stages: first, rapid and [140]
Jo

mL-1 second, slow disintegration at

1 – 30 min. Optimum conditions:
10 min and 1.0 W mL−1
Waste 5 to 200 J mL-1 20 Disintegration of 70% at 200 J [122]
biomass mL−1. No increase in
biodegradability when doses
greater than 50 J mL−1
WAS 1.2 to 3 kW 1-4 20, 35 and Optimum parameters for [120]
L-1 minutes 40 microbial flocculant extraction: 20
kHz, 2.1–2.7 kW L−1, 1–3 min
 57

Meat 1000 to 14000 KJ gTS-1 30 More SCOD release after [141]

processin irradiation in four kinds of by-
g industry product streams from meat
waste industry observed.
WAS 0.67-1 W 4 to 5 20 SCOD depended on power [137]
mL-1 (W/mL). 320 mg /g TS SCOD
increase. SCOD increase
reduced at higher TS content.
WWTP 720 W L-1 + 20 20 For Fenton + US soluble TOC [123]
sludge 2 g L-1 increased only in the first 20 min
FeSO4.7H2 from 89.3 to 261.5 mg L-1.
O
WAS 2 W mL-1 + 15 20 Biodegradability as tested by [124]
60 mg L-1 anaerobic digestion increased.
free SCFA yield of 316 mg COD/g

of
ammonia VSS was obtained
Sewage 15500-30500 KJ kgTS-1 26 COD solubilization of 59.3 kg [111]
sludge TS/L, 30,500 kJ/kg TS and 13 h.

ro
759–902% increase in soluble
carbohydrate concentrations.
DWTS 0.03-0.033 15 68 and Highest solubilization for time [98]
W mL-1 160 within 15 minutes. Highest degree

-p
of disintegration at 68 KHz of
about 55%.
WAS 720 W L-1 60 12 KHZ Up to 60% optimized DDCOD [105]
and values. Lower pressure was
re
pressure better than 20 KHZ. Pressure
of 3.25 increase was recommended due
bar to increase in DDCOD from about
30 to about 60.
lP

WAS 0.4 KW L-1 + 0.04 g L-1 40 The soluble carbohydrate [104]

FeSO4.7H2O concentrations in US + Fenton
were 2.36-fold, 2.17-fold and
17.11-fold more than that
obtained by the Fenton treatment,
na

US and control tests,

respectively. The degree of
sludge disintegration (DDCOD) for
the US/Fenton treatment was
15.4%, whereas it was only
ur

9.97% and 3.18% for the US and

Fenton tests.
Sewage 21 KJ gTS-1 up to 18 20 The SCOD reached 4670 mg/L: [106]
sludge disintegration degree of 31.7% in
Jo

9 min or 21 kJ/g TS. DDCOD of up

to 90% with 0.1 M NaOH.
Biodegradability increased by
31%.
WAS 1111 to 5 to 45 20 results indicate that ultrasound [138]
9999 KJ L-1 pretreatment generates
biodegradable biomass more
readily rather than an increase in
the total degradability.
 58

Ammonia and Nitrogen

WAS 0-26000 kJ -- 20 Ammonium nitrogen rapidly [86]
KgTS-1 increases by 110%. Nitrate
(Power and increase was much smaller: 16%.
Time
function)
Secondar 0.2-1.5 W 60 20 Ammonia Nitrogen increased [81]
y sludge mL-1 slightly from 125 to 150 mg/ in 60
minutes
Methane Production
WAS 300 W (4300 KJ Kg-1) 24 Digestion improved by 14 %. [97]
Specific methane production
increased.
Sewage 15500-30500 KJ kgTS-1 26 Methane yield increased by up to [111]

of
sludge 50% and hence, electricity
recovery by up to 24 %
WAS 0.4 KW L-1 + 0.04 g L-1 40 The US/Fenton treatment [104]

ro
FeSO4.7H2O produced the highest ultimate
methane yield (232.80 mL/L-
sludge), which was 1.4-fold, 1.17-
fold and 5.2-fold of those obtained

-p
in the Fenton, US and control
tests, respectively.
Sewage 21 KJ gTS-1 up to 18 20 Up to 40% improvement in [106]
sludge methane production.
re
lP
na
ur
Jo
 59

Table 5. Compilation of several recent studies on hydrodynamic cavitation pre-treatment of sludge

based on the effect on physical and chemical parameters.

Sludge Process type Pressure Effect on the parameter Reference

Particle size

WAS HC: 12 hole 3.1 to 5.5 Decrease in particle size (flocs) [87]
orifice bars
biomass Stator and 2 bars Reduction in size affected viscosity. [89]
rotor Increase in surface area from 28 to
35 m2/kg TS. Bigger particles
increase specific energy input.

of
WAS HC + Electric 5 kgf cm-2 Reduction from 31.1 µm mean size [88]
field (single to upto 9.22 µm mean size using
hole orifice) EFM-HC

ro
Total solids

WAS+OWW Orifice: 3 10.25 bar 136% turbidity increase [91]

-p
mm
WAS 1.2 mm 12 bar 7% TS reduction. [93]
throat
re
venturi; 2M
NaOH
Dewaterability
lP

WAS HC: 12 hole 3.1 to 5.5 Low pH and low sludge favored [87]
orifice dewaterability.

DDCOD and SCOD

na

WAS HC: 27 hole 0.7 MPa Up to 24% degree of disintegration. [107]

orifice Approximately 5% more than US.
WAS Rotation initial 45 mg/L up to 602 mg/L by 20 [142]
ur

generator passes through RGHC

HC (1740 to
2850 rpm)
Jo

WAS HC + Electric 5 kgf cm-2 highest disintegration degree of 47 [88]

field (single % for EFM-HC
hole orifice)

WAS Swirling-jet 2 to 4 bar Degree of disintegration is higher at [99]

cavitation higher temperature. Higher SCOD
(Ecowirl at higher pressures. SCOD
reactor) increased from 244 to 1719 mg/L.
Up to 16.4 % degree of
disintegration.
 60

WAS Orifice: 3 2 bars HC assisted thermo-alkaline [108]

mm; pH 10 treatment led to higher
and 50⁰ C. disintegration up to 53%. Energy
efficiency of 64.5 mg SCOD/KJ.
10,673 mg/L delta SCOD achieved.
WAS 1.2 mm 12 bar SCOD increased from 600 to 1450 [93]
throat mg/L.
venturi; 2M
NaOH
Methane Production

WAS HC: 27 hole 0.7 MPa Approximately 5 mg L-1 COD higher [107]
orifice gas yield than non-pretreated

of
sample. Addition of NaOH further
improves yield.
WAS Rotation The biogas production increased by [142]
generator 12.7%

ro
HC (1740 to
2850 rpm)
WAS+OWW Orifice: 3 10.25 bar Up to 30 % increase in biogas yield. [91]

-p
mm
Wheat straw Stator and Up to 100 % increase in biogas [114]
Rotor (2300- production.
2700 rpm)
re
biomass Stator and 2 bars Approximately 10% increase in the [89]
rotor methane production with energy
input of 470 kJ/kg TS
lP

WAS+ OWW Orifice: 3 3.1 to 5.5 Biogas yield increased by 43%. [113]
mm bars Longer increase for longer HRTs.
Increased biodegradability of OWW.
Lignocellulosic Venturi 220 - 340 Generated no furfural. Efficient [126]
biomass kPa degradation of lignocellulose.
na

WAS 1.2 mm 12 bar HC yielded 22–27 % higher biogas [93]

throat production and 13–28 % higher
venturi; 2M biogas yield.
ur

NaOH
Jo
 61

Table 6. Sample costing analysis for comparison of different process involving hydrodynamic
cavitation and biological oxidation in terms of cost and extents of degradation.

Process Pressure Time Extent of Energy KWh Cost ($ m-3) Cost per
(bar) degradation L-1 order ($ m-3)
(%)
HC 5 120 minutes 27.9 1.9776 x10-02 1.9776 x10-03 1.4176 x10-04
Only biological 28 days 14.4 8.5600x10-04 8.5600 x10-05 1.1889 x10-05
HC + 5 120 min (HC) 50.6 1.9776 x10-02 1.9776 x10-03 7.8165 x10-05
biological + 28 days
(BO) (BO)

of
ro
-p
re
lP
na
ur
Jo