Components of sludge and its wet air oxidation products.

The increasing complexity of waste disposal problems demands the develop ment of treatment methods of great flexibility. The wet air oxidation proc ess provides a very wide range of possible treatment conditions, which have been described in previous pub lications (1) (2) (3). High-tempera ture and pressure units effect nearly total oxidation of all types of concen trated wastes, while low-temperature and pressure oxidations may be ap plied to wastewater sludges to pro duce sterile, easily dewatered slurries. The partially oxidized sludges may be dewatered readily without further con ditioning to give a stable, non-obnox ious solid and a liquid phase. Bio-oxi dation tests show that the liquid phases are treated easily by biological proc esses.