Thermal treatment applied in association with a biological system allows for a significant reduction in excess sludge production (∼50%). In general, heat treatment is described as a sludge disintegration technique. This paper offers a thorough study on the impact of heat treatment, at temperatures below 100 °C, on the solubilisation of the sludge COD and its biodegradability. Discontinuous heating experiments were performed on activated and digested sludge. At all temperatures tested the released COD for digested sludge was systematically higher than that for activated sludge (15 and 40%, respectively, at 95 °C for 40 min of contact time). For the first 30 min, a 1st order kinetic, with respect to the residual COD, was systematically found. In the range of 40–95 °C, digested sludge had a lower activation energy than activated sludge (26 kcal/mol compared to 70–160 kcal/mol). COD solubilisation is thus more positively influenced by temperature in the case of activated sludge. This may be due to the significant difference in the ratio of protein/carbohydrate in digested and activated sludge (1–5 and 0.2–0.7, respectively). The increase in the COD/TKN ratio in the solubilised fraction after thermal treatment of activated sludge suggests a preferential solubilisation of proteins over carbohydrates. Respirometric tests performed on the solubilised COD showed that whatever the sludge origin, only 40–50% of released COD is biodegradable at a conventional hydraulic retention time (i.e. 24 h). Hence, heat treatment would act more through organic matter solubilisation rather than by a biodegradability increase.
