- SYMPOSIUM -
FIELD EVALUATION OF LAS AND
ABS TREATABILITY
I. Introduction
P. J. WEAVER
Director of Sanitary Engineering
Research Services
Proctor & Gamble Co.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Various questions have been raised concerning detergents and their role in
water pollution problems. A large-scale investigatory program has been undertaken by the detergent industry, both in research aimed at truly defining the
problem, and in research directed toward developing new surfactants which would
be adequately treatable. The detergent industry, after what has now amounted to
about a decade of basic research and development, has been successful in developing a new surfactant, LAS, and the industry is currently converting from the
old difficult-to-degrade ABS to this new biodegradable material. This conversion
program is expected to be completed by the middle of this year.
This may be the largest voluntary effort directed toward overcoming a water
pollution problem ever accomplished by a single industry, with a cost estimated
at over $150 million. In any event, the detergent industry is convinced that the
change from ABS to LAS is a significant improvement so far as treatability of detergent wastes is concerned, and is an adequate answer to any pollution problems
attributable to detergent products.
It is hard to estimate how many experimental products were examined in
various laboratories before the most promising candidate could be singled out, but
certainly it must be close to a thousand. Of course, this screening had to include
many aspects other than the question of waste-treatment biodegradability or
treatability. But as the promising candidate came more and more to the fore, its
testing was expanded and accelerated on all sides to be as sure as possible that
there would be no slip-up with the material. On the treatability side, more and
more laboratory tests were brought to bear, and eventually the scale of testing was
raised to just about the ultimate that one can expect -- actual use-testing in the
field.
This symposium is being held today to discuss four separate field tests which
have been carried out to evaluate the treatability of LAS. Two of these tests were
sponspred by individual companies and two were sponsored by the Soap & Detergent Association. Each study was carried out under the supervision of a different
university, and will be discussed below by the following in this order: Prof. G. P.
Hanna, the Ohio State project carried out near Columbus; Prof. Charles Renn, the
Johns Hopkins study at Woodbridge, Virginia; Prof. John Knapp, the Virginia Military Institute project at Manassas Air Force Station in Virginia; and Mr. Paul
Knopp,  the University of Wisconsin study at the Kettle-Moraine Boys School near
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