Effects on Speciation of Ni & Cd in Sewage Sludge during Composting only and Co-Composting with Fly Ash Added

The land use has become the international mainstream and the favorable direction to dispose the municipal sewage sludge in recent years. The heavy metals, however, are the major barrier that limit the land utilization. Batch aerobic composting experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of composting and co-composting with fly ash on the shape of the heavy metals (Ni & Cd) in sludge by using the sawdust to regulate the C/N ratio. Results have shown that co-composting with fly ash can significantly change Ni & Cd species distribution, leading unstable state content of Ni lower than composting only. However, the result is not as good as composting only in terms of Cd. At the same time the fly ash dosage equaling 14% of the dry sludge mass was the optimized quantity to guarantee the lowest exchangeable fraction amount of the two heavy metals.