A simple and low cost technique for determining the granulometry of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor sludge

摘要

Four techniques (microscope sizing, calculation from settling velocities, image and laser analysis) are available nowadays for determining the particle size distribution of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor slidge. These techniques present however the disadvantage of being either tedious, imprecise or expensive and hardly applicable in full scale treatment plants. There was then the need for a simple and low cost technique. In this study, a granulometry procedure based on manual humid sieving was evaluated. It was shown that no solid loss occured during the screening and that the particle size profiles were reproducible when performed with sludge samples of 5, 10, 25 and 150 ml, but not 1 ml. Only the results between 10 and 25 ml were however fully identical.