Convective Drying of Mixtures of Sewage Sludge and Sawdust in a Fixed Bed

This work is part of a project aiming at developing a renewable fuel for gasification purposes, through the convective drying of sludge/wood mixtures. The first step consists in characterizing the drying behaviour of sludge/sawdust mixtures, in a convective fixed bed dryer. In particular, the influence of the mixing step (no mixing against 30 s at 40 rpm) and the sawdust/sludge ratio (1/9, 2/8, 3/7 and 4/6 on a dry basis) have been investigated, as well as the drying temperature (50 °C, 80 °C and 110 °C). As showed in a previous work, the addition of dry matter into sludge has an impact on the initial 3D structure of the bed of extrudates to be dried. Moreover, it is well known that the volume shrinkage occurring during sludge drying will affect the drying velocity. In this study, X-ray tomography, a non-invasive imaging technique, is used to assess changes in volume, porosity and exchange surface between the beginning and the end of the drying process. Results first confirm the importance of the mixing step on the drying behaviour: the drying rate of the mixed sludge is slower than the one of original sludge. Nevertheless the addition of sawdust is shown to have a positive impact on the drying process from mass ratio of 2/8, with observed drying rates higher than for the original sludge. During the whole drying process, the volume and exchange surface of the sample increase and the porosity decreases as the mass ratio increases. These results indicate that the air and the sample contact more fully with more sawdust addition, resulting from bed expansion and exchange surface increase. Hence, the heat and mass transfer efficiency between the air and the material increases and consequently the drying rate. Further work will be done in order to assess the impact of the drying temperature and to characterize the behaviour of these samples during pyrolysis using thermo gravimetric analysis.