Investigation of Seasonal Heavy Metal Contents in the Activated Sludge Wastewater Treatment Plant: Case Study

• Main Author: Turgay Dere
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Academic Publishing House Researcher 2012-10-01
• Series: Evropejskij Issledovatelʹ
• Subjects: activated sludge; bioaccumulation; heavy metal; independent t-test; sewage sludge.
• Online Access: http://www.erjournal.ru/pdf.html?n=1352140639.pdf

In this study, composite sewage sludge samples were taken from the drying beds of the Elazig City Activated Sludge Treatment Plant in order to investigate the seasonal heavy metal concentrations in the samples. According to the results of the analysis, the acid extractable annual heavy metal concentrations of the effluent sludge coming from the drying beds were found as Fe >Zn> Mn >Cu >Cr >Ni >Pb> Co> Cd. İron concentration in the sewage sludge was found to be the highest where Cd was detected in the lowest concentration value. According to the independent t-test applied to the summer and winter pollution loads of the sewage sludge, statistical differences for the average values were observed between the groups for the iron, copper, and cadmium contents (p<0.05). On the other hand, no statistical differences were observed for the average values between the groups for the iron, zinc, manganese, chromium, nickel, lead, and cobalt contents (p>0.05).