Disinfection Processes and Stability Refinements to Biosolids Treatment Technologies

This paper reviews the current United States sewage sludge disinfection regulations and their associated practices; discusses the limitations of the practices; the criteria employed in evaluating a new (innovative or alternative) disinfection process, and notes both some processes recently evaluated and ones evaluated. The United States regulations are designed to protect human health by minimizing the contact of humans with pathogenic microorganisms. Two types of disinfection processes are employed. Processes like pasteurization are employed to reduce pathogens below their analytical detection limits, while processes like anaerobic digestion are combined with requirements for organic matter reduction and access restrictions. Issues with the present disinfection alternatives such as their only being concerned with the presence or absence of certain pathogens like enteric viruses or Ascaris sp. are discussed and remedies suggested. Similarly, several of the current options for measuring vector attractivene...