Full scale and laboratory scale results from the trial of MicroSludge at the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant at Los Angeles County

Abstract: MicroSludge® is a patented chemical and pressure pre-treatment process that liquefies waste activated sludge (WAS) to increase both the rate and extent that WAS is degraded in an anaerobic digester. The process uses chemical pre-treatment to weaken cell membranes and then a high-pressure homogenizer, or “cell disrupter”, to provide an enormous and sudden pressure change to burst the cells in WAS. The resulting solubilized WAS is then more readily converted to biogas.