PRECOAT FILTRATION OF WASTE ACTIVATED SLUDGE
R. E. Komoski, Manager Environmental Control
Johnson & Johnson
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903
J. C. Puckett, Manager
Waste Treatment Division
Puckett Construction Company
Birmingham, Alabama 35233
J. B. Childers, President
Childers Engineering Company
Houston, Texas 77017
INTRODUCTION
Environmentally sound waste treatment has long been the corporate policy of the
Johnson & Johnson family of companies throughout the world.
Through the years, Chicopee Manufacturing Co. of Gainesville, Georgia, one of our
textile facilities employing onsite liquid waste treatment operations, has continually done
its share toward maintaining the health of their employees, regard for their neighbors,
community and the environment.
Although selective waste treatment began many years ago at Chicopee, Gainesville, the
first in a series of improvements began in 1956 when a secondary treatment system was
designed and installed.   During the period of 1969-1972, modifications were made to the
existing system which included waste equalization, nutrient addition, improved oxygen
transfer, improved sludge clarification and recirculation, and improved final effluent disinfection and transfer.
During this time, it was decided by Chicopee management to store waste activated
sludge onsite only until an environmentally acceptable method of dewatering and disposal
was developed for our requirements and consistent with the corporate policy of Johnson
& Johnson.
The disposal of waste activated sludge is a difficult problem for plant designers and
often represents a substantial portion of the capital investment for a modern biological
wastewater treatment plant.   Unfortunately, many waste activated sludge dewatering facilities are difficult to operate and expensive to maintain, and often do not perform as designed.
An extensive pilot-scale evaluation of most of the commerically available sludge dewatering methods was conducted on the textile waste activated sludge generated at the Chicopee Manufacturing Company's existing dyeing and finishing wastewater treatment plant.
The objective was to determine which of the evaluated methods could dewater this industrial waste activated sludge sufficiently to produce a "dry-handleable" sludge cake containing about 20% biological solids by weight.
Only two of the dewatering processes evaluated consistantly produced "dry-handleable"
sludge cakes:   (a) rotary vacuum precoat filtration and (b) pressure filtration.
Rotary vacuum precoat filtration was selected on the basis of its lower estimated capital cost, ease of operation and unusual ability to produce a "dry-handleable" sludge cake
over a wide range of operating conditions.
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