Method for treating waste-activated sludge using elecroporation
AssigneeOpencel LLC
InventorsJeffrey Held, Satya P. Chauhan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of treating of municipal sludge, paper-pulp sludge, animal and plant waste, and the like, whereby the treatment thereof via electroporation causes the breakdown of waste activated sludge, which is then recycled back to a bioreactor, or to one or more additional bioreactors such as aerobic, facultative, anoxic, or strictly anaerobic.
Claims13
A method of treating biomass contained in municipal or industrial biological wastewater treatment sludge, paper-pulp sludge, animal or plant waste sludge, containing intra-cellular water molecules contained in molecular cellular units of the biological waste sludge, comprising:
- (a) directing the biomass to an electroporating station;
- (b) electroporating the biomass for destroying at least most of the individual cellular units of the biomass in order to release the intra-cellular water molecules contained therein;
- and
- said step (b) causing massive disruption of the cellular matter, allowing for the release of bound as well as intra-cellular liquids and intracellular dissolved/organic matter;
- and
- (c) directing the released intracellular dissolved/organic matter to a bioreactor for performing biological digestion thereon whereby the intracellular, dissolved organic matter is used as food for the bacteria in the biological reactor, whereby the biological digestion process is accomplished.
A method of treating wastewater comprising:
- (a) delivering said wastewater to at least one bioreactor;
- (b) digesting the waste water in said bioreactor, said bioreactor digesting the waste water to create a waste biological sludge including a plurality of cellular units and bound intracellular dissolved organic matter;
- (c) delivering said waste biological sludge to an electroporation apparatus;
- (d) electroporating said waste biological sludge in said electroporation apparatus by exposing said waste biological sludge to a pulsed electric field to disrupt said cellular units and to release said bound intracellular dissolved organic matter;
- and
- (e) delivering said dissolved organic matter to at least one of:
- said at least one bioreactor and an alternative bioreactor for reaction therewith;
- said step (e) comprising supplying said dissolved organic matter as food for said at least one bioreactor or said alternative bioreactor whereby the bioreactor digestion process is thus enhanced.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.