Heavy metals in high concentrations can cause health and environmental damage. Nanosilver is an emerging heavy metal which has a bright future of use in many applications. Here we report on the levels of silver and other heavy metals in municipal sewage sludge. Five towns in Limpopo province of South Africa were selected and the sludge from their wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) was collecte...

The pyrolysis residue (SP) of sewage sludge (SS) produced at 500 degrees C was subjected to batch and column leaching tests to investigate the release of its organic and inorganic constituents and metals. For comparison, incineration ash (SI) obtained from a SS incinerator was also tested. Pyrolysis and incineration reduced organic matter of SS from 0.78 kg kg(-1)-dry SS to 0.16 and 0.01 kg kg(...

In arid and semi-arid areas, low soil fertility and water deficit considerably limit crop production. The use of sewage sludge as an organic amendment could contribute to the improvement of soil fertility and hence the agronomic production. The study aims to highlight the behaviour of durum wheat to the application of sewage sludge associated with water stress. The assessment focused on morphop...

To simultaneously quantify and profile the complex mixture of short-, median-, and long-chain CPs (SCCPs, MCCPs, and LCCPs) in Australian sewage sludge, we applied and further validated a recently developed novel instrumental technique, using quadrupole time-of-flight high resolution mass spectrometry running in the negative atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mode (APCI-qTOF-HRMS). Withou...

Sewage sludge is composed of organic and inorganic materials. The organic portion of the sludge is predominantly composed of C, H, ti, and S. On a dry-basis, the heating value of sludge is greater than that of oil shale or tar sand. The volatile matter content of dry sludge can be higher than that of the high volatile bituminous coal. Available correlations in the literature, developed for coal...

The enrichment or spiking of sewage sludge with heavy metals for experimental purposes is a fairly widely used, although sometimes controversial, technique. A study was undertaken, using a sequential fractionation scheme, to assess the degree of incorporation of Cu, Ni, and Zn into sewage sludge samples spiked with these metals and incubated for 6 mo. For all three metals, substantial proportio...

Since potassium is essential for plant nutrition, should this element be deficient in sewage sludge used for plant fertilization supplementary mineral potassium fertilization is necessary. The aim of the present study has been to evaluate the effect of fertilization with organic materials on maize yield, its potassium concentrations and the content of bioavailable forms of potassium in soil of ...

The paper deals with effects of liming and different doses of municipal sewage sludge (5, 10, and 15 % of soil mass) on copper speciation in soil. In all samples, pH was determined together with total copper concentration, which was measured with the ICP-AES method. Concentration of copper chemical fractions was determined using the seven-step procedure of Zeien and Brümmer. In the soil treated...

Safe disposal of municipal sewage sludge is a challenging global environmental concern. The aim of this study was to assess the response of soil microbial functional diversity to the accumulation of municipal sewage sludge during landfill storage. Soil samples of a municipal sewage sludge (SS) and from a sewage sludge landfill that was 3 m from a SS landfill (SS3) were analyzed relative to an u...

there are more than 350 wastewater treatment plants distributed across different parts of oman. some of them produce large quantities of domestic sewage sludge, particularly this study focused on characterizing domestic sludge of six treatment plants that may contain various pollutants, therefore the proper management of domestic sewage sludge is essential.samples of domestic sewage sludge were...