Heavy Metals Removal from Sewage Sludge and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) by Co-Composting Process

Background & Aims of the Study: One of the most important pollutants in drinking water, airand soils is heavy metals. It is very harmful for humans and other live organisms. The purpose ofthis study was the usage of a co-composting process for removal of heavy metals from municipalsolid waste and sewage sludge.Materials and Methods: This experimental study was a conducted sewage sludge andmunicipal solid waste. For collection of samples from urban solid waste composting andwastewater treatment plant, a 200 mL polyethylene bottles was used, samples after acidificationwere stored in a dark place at 4°C temperature until the metals analysis the heavy metals valuesremaining in the samples was measured by graphite furnace absorption spectrometer method(Varian, SpectrAA 240, Australia). In this study, we used SPSS version 16 for data processing;and they were also analyzed by descriptive statistics.Results: Result of this study showed that values of C/N in the first, second and third stagecompost were 31.7, 27.3 and 41.8, respectively. Based on the result of this study the value ofremoval of Cd with 9.8 mg kg-1 in first stage and Cr, Cu and Zn with 89, 21 and 87.6 mg kg-1 inthird stage were highest treatment.Conclusion: Our results show that co-composting process between many treatment processeshaving to be cost effective for heavy metal removal from solid waste and wastewater treatment.

Keywords:

Co-compostingSolid WasteHeavy MetalssludgeAhvazIran