Treatment of Lagoon Sludge and Liquid Animal Manure Utilizing Geotextile Filtration

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to observe the solids and plant nutrient removal efficiencies that canbe achieved using geotextile filtration to filter lagoon sludge and fresh animal manure. The types of materialtested were dairy lagoon sludge, swine lagoon sludge, liquid dairy manure (TS = 0.71%) and liquid swinemanure (TS = 2.89%).<br><br>The removal efficiencies for solids and major plant nutrients were not significantly different between the dairyand swine lagoon sludges tested. Geotextile filtration removed 87.8% of TS, 58.4% of the Total AmmoniacalNitrogen (TAN), 87.0% of the organic-N, and 86.7% of the total phosphorous from lagoon sludge. Thedewatering characteristics were also similar; the volume of the dewatered sludge averaged 36.3% of the initialvolume loaded into the geotextile bags.<br><br>The removal efficiencies for fresh liquid dairy manure were lower than for dairy lagoon sludge. However,substantial reduction in solids and nutrient content were obtained. Geotextile filtration removed 47.3% of theTS, 25.8% of the TAN, 43.0% of the organic-N, and 44.9% of the total phosphorous from liquid dairy manure.The volume reduction for fresh liquid dairy manure was the largest in the study at 8% of the total influentvolume. Relatively high solids and plant nutrient removal efficiencies were observed for the fresh liquid swinemanure. However, the geotextile bag retained 60.3% of the initial volume. Therefore, dewatering characteristicswere poor for the fresh swine manure.