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In the Baltic Sea Region historical trends in choosing sludge treatment technologies lead to enormous variations of regional sludge management practices. IWAMA aims to develop the technological and economic feasibility of sludge management practices in wastewater treatment taking into account different locations and capacities of the plants. Valuable knowledge about the situation in the regional WWTPs will be provided through auditing selected plants and developing a comparative benchmark in sludge management.

In the course of the project, uniform and thorough guidelines for applying the audit concept for smart sludge management will be developed and tested. Nutrient removal process will be enhanced through advanced sludge water teratment and new low-cost solutions for sludge hygienisation, stabilisation and drying. In the framework of IWAMA, loads of nutrients and hazardous substances to the Baltic Sea will be reduced by smart sludge management.

Activities

  • Key figure data collection is necessary to evaluate the general situation of the sludge management and to develop a benchmark. It gives information about the situation of different scaled WWTPs in Baltic Sea Region and possibility to evaluate the efficiency of different applied sludge treatment technologies. The final outcome of this process is a unified comparative benchmark of the common sludge treatment strategies used in different countries. The data is collected from over 60 WWTPs from Baltic Sea Region.
    If you are interested in the questionnaire applied for the benchmark development, please download the Excel file and find a video providing instructions on how to use it.
    Report on the key figure data for sludge benchmark (published July 2018)

 

  • Sludge audits are carried out in the following WWTPs: Kaunas Water Ltd. (LT), Water and Sewage Company of Szczecin Ltd (PL), Daugavpils Water Ltd., Jurmalas udens Ltd.(LV), Tartu Water Company Ltd., Türi Water Company Ltd. (EE). Sludge audit consists of the full plant process analysis, modelling with sludge formation analyses; analyses of the sludge management technology; analyses of energy and chemical consumption; on-site energy measurements of the principal sludge treatment technological nodes; measurement and analyses of chemicals; sampling and analyses of the sludge properties (achieved stabilisation, hygienisation, anthropogenic inorganic and organic compounds); analyses of personnel involvement.
    Performing sludge audit considering technological and regional peculiarities gives detailed information about operational challenges and requirement for capacity development. Based on results, WWTPs gain necessary knowledge on how to improve the existing process. Enhancement of WWT process leads to reduced energy consumption and loads of hazardous substances and nutrients in the effluent.
    Read more about the audit concept for smart sludge management.

 

 

The sludge handling activities in the project are lead by Tartu University, Estonia.