2nd International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering,
8 – 10 May 2017, Cappadocia, Nevşehir
Energy applications of different wave lengths have been used for drying the sludge. In this study an electromagnetic thermal heating plate which produces 450-watt power with 9258 nm wave were used. The heating plate also consists of 9.3 μm wavelength in the range of
long-wave infrared. The sludge was spread in 2 cm thickness on the tray and clamped in 22cm from the heating plate. In addition to that, the surface of sludge tray was covered with foil tape to increase the heat insulation and preventing the direct contact between the
sludge and the styrofoam tray. During certain periods, the system was stopped and subsequently images of sludge surface were taken by using FLIR TG 165 thermal camera. Furthermore, the inner temperatures of the sludge were measured with a stick thermometer. At the beginning, the sludge had a weight of 8.3 kg and a volume of 0.009 m3. Electromagnetic thermal drying was applied to sludge for 2 days. After this application, dry solids content increased from 19% to 86% at the end of the 2th day with heating and to 94.27% at the end of the 4th day without heating. As a result, 98.5% of water of initial sludge was evaporated and the total sludge weight decreased to 1.746 kg. The energy
consumed during drying was measured as 18.728 kW. The electricity requirement to evaporate 1 kg of sludge water was found to be 0.061 kW.
The study results showed that sludge drying process with the electromagnetic heating plate could be used for additional sludge dewatering and drying prior to the final sludge disposal.