Since sludge treatment and disposal in industrialised countries nowadays is a highly problematic issue any method that impacts on the enzyme driven process of biological degradation of organic substrates which eventually results in less surplus bio-mass production is of great practical value. Ultrasound is capable of destroying biological cells and we have found that it might be promising to use ultrasound to disintegrate part of the recycled active biomass in order to achieve a sustainable reduction of filamentous bacteria and to minimize the production of waste activated sludge/biomass in the biological waste water treatment system.

Although it is known that disintegration increases the fraction of soluble substances in a sonicated sample of waste activated sludge, the biodegradability of these released substances is unknown. In preliminary tests in our laboratory we sonicated waste activated sludge with different ultrasound frequencies and a variety of energy inputs and sonication times. The impact of sludge disintegration with ultrasound on the biodegradability of biomass can easily be shown.

The aim of our ongoing work is to proof that the enzymatic reaction kinetics in a continuous activated sludge lab scale plant are modified by sonication of recycled sludge.

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1. Improvement of Sludge Handling in Pulp and Paper Industry Using Ultrasound
2. Potential of Ultrasound in Combined Disinfection Processes