Dewatering for reduction of moisture content in sludge cake is one of the main procedure in sludge treatment processing. Through dehydration process, the volume of sludge cake are substantially decreased. It led efficiency improvement of further processing such as transport and disposal of sludge as well as drying cake could be utilized as solid refuse fuel. Microwave dryer is energy efficient process in comparison with thermal types. For these reason, we developed microwave dryer for real field applications. Firstly, with 4kW scale microwave dryer, operation conditions were optimized in terms of generator power, shape of drying champer, and height of microwave generator. Based on the results, 10kW scale microwave dryer was designed and manufactured successfully.

The effect of sewage sludge irradiation and addition of starfish as a dewatering agent on the efficiency of composting was investigated using saw dust as a bulking agent. Results indicates that the temperature of EB sludge cake (electron beam irradiated sludge cake) and EB-SF sludge cake (electron beam irradiated sludge cake mixed with star fish powder) composting piles rose up to 62 ~ 66oC within 1 day and maintained high temperature of 52 ~ 55oC for more than 3 days, which was much higher than that of the control. The electron beam irradiation and addition of star fish accelerate the composting. The control sludge cake composting pile needed 35 days to reach the criteria of mature rate for composting, (Final C/N ratio)/(Initial C/N ratio) of 0.75, while EB-SF sludge cake composting plie required 11 days. This means that maturing compost could be highly improved by irradiating sludge cake or by adding star fish powder. The pH of the composting pile of sludge cake with addition of waste star fish powder rose 1 pH unit higher than that of the control during the entire operation, showing that the star fish has a good buffering capacity. The pH of the final matured compost was above pH 7, satisfying the standard of soil conditioner. The G.I. values of Chinese cabbage and lettuce with composts from EB sludge cake and EB-SF sludge cake composting pile ranged 88 ~ 99, satisfying a safety level (G.I. 80) in plant growth. After 60 days operation for composting 4 different types of sludge cakes, each compost was able to meet the Ministry of Agriculture's Standards of Compost.