Ex-situ treatment of sediment from a black-odor water body using activated sludge

Abstract Sediment containing numerous nutrients and pollutants has become an important consideration when treating black-odor water. Excessive activated sludge produced in wastewater treatment plants contains a large number of microorganisms, which is beneficial for removing organics and nutrients from the black-odor sediment. In this study, three types of sludge from a secondary sedimentation tank (SST), a digestion tank (DT), and an aerobic tank treating landfill leachate (AT_leachate) were used to treat black-odor sediment, respectively. All the three types of activated sludge enhanced the treatment performance of sediment. The SST sludge worked the best with the optimal dosage of 2.56 g/(kg sediment), and the removal of nitrogen and organics reached 57.03 and 28.14%, respectively. Illumina MiSeq sequencing revealed that the activated sludge significantly affected the microbial community of the sediment. In particular, SST sludge resulted in significant increase in the number of microorganisms related to nitrification and sulfur metabolism to 10.68 and 10.97%, respectively. This was found to be important for degrading organics and promoting nitrogen removal. This study provides an efficient strategy for the treatment of black-odor sediment, and also realizes the complete utilization of waste activated sludge.