Treatment of Türi sewage sludge from Heavy metals, organic pollutants and metal recovery by fungi

Abstract

Sewage sludge is a biosolid formed as an end product of wastewater treatment and it is produced worldwide. Sewage sludge contain high amount of metals including the toxic ones. Therefore, an efficient treatment and recycling process is imperative due to the fact that it’s loose or unguided application in agriculture and other fields can be hazardous to human, animals and plant lives. Sludges from Türi, a town in Järva County, Estonia were collected. The sludges samples included the raw, one year treated, two years treated, and four years treated. There are different methods currently in use in the treatment of sewage sludge including the use of bacteria. The use of fungi treatment can be employed in the treatment of sludge and recovery of metals and this method proves as a very effective approach. The main objective of this work was to examine the effectiveness of the removal of heavy metals using fungal treatment. The results showed that fungi were able to recover effectively the metals in the sludges as the concentration of metals decreased in the sludge with treatment.