Wetsus - Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, PO Box 1113, 8900 CC Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
J Hazard Mater. 2010 May 15;177(1-3):633-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2009.12.079. Epub 2009 Dec 23.
Reduction of the amount of waste sludge from waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) can be achieved with the aquatic worm Lumbriculus variegatus in a new reactor concept. In addition to reducing the amount of waste sludge, further processing of produced worm faeces and released nutrients should also be considered. This study gives the mass balances for sludge consumed by L. variegatus, showing the fate of the consumed organic material, nutrients and heavy metals associated with the sludge. A distinction is made between conversion into worm biomass, release as dissolved metabolites and what remains in the worm faeces. The results showed that 39% of the nitrogen and 12% of the phosphorus in the sludge digested by the worms are used in the formation of new worm biomass, which has potential for reuse. Experiments showed that settling of the worm faeces leads to a factor 2.5 higher solids concentration, compared to settling of waste sludge. This could lead to a 67% reduction of the volumetric load on thickening equipment. The worm reactor is expected to be most interesting for smaller WWTPs where a decrease on the volumetric load on sludge handling operations will have most impact.
利用水蚯蚓在一种新型反应器中，可以减少污水处理厂（WWTP）的剩余污泥量。除了减少剩余污泥量外，还应考虑对产生的蚯蚓粪便和释放的营养物质进行进一步处理。本研究给出了水蚯蚓消耗的污泥的质量平衡，展示了消耗的有机物质、营养物质和与污泥相关的重金属的去向。将其分为转化为蚯蚓生物量、作为溶解代谢物释放以及残留在蚯蚓粪便中的部分。结果表明，被蚯蚓消化的污泥中的氮有 39%和磷有 12%被用于形成新的蚯蚓生物量，具有再利用的潜力。实验表明，与剩余污泥相比，蚯蚓粪便的沉降导致固体浓度提高了 2.5 倍。这可能会导致浓缩设备的体积负荷减少 67%。预计这种蚯蚓反应器对较小的 WWTP 最有意义，因为减少污泥处理操作的体积负荷将产生最大的影响。
