A characterization study of organic matter in municipal treatment sludges by reversed‐phase HPLC chromatography

Abstract
The composition of organic and inorganic matter in a sludge can heavily affect the mobility of the metals there contained and cause their release into the soil ; these processes can determine the metal pollution of water‐bearing strata. In the present paper an HPLC method is presented for the chemical characterization of individual components in a municipal treatment sludge. Analyses were performed for an exctrat of the sludge in CO2‐saturated water, simulating meteoric leaching conditions. Preservation conditions have been found able to guarantee for the stability of the sludge over the analysis time. The ion‐interaction reversed‐phase liquid chromatography, making use of a reversed‐phase C18 stationary phase and of octylamine ortho‐phosphate and octylamine‐salicylate as the interaction reagents, was shown very usefull for this investigation and permitted the identification of some of the major components present in the sludge.