This research will explore the feasibility of improving dewatering sewage sludges by the use of enzymes, whereby the water-imbibing biopolymer matrix-predominantly polysaccharide-is disrupted and bound water is released, becoming available for separation from the sludge solids matrix. This work could provide an alternative for sludge dewatering with substantial savings of energy and cost. The work will focus initially on obtaining sludge microbes which overproduce polysaccharide slimes, followed by isolating other microbes capable of degrading polysaccharides present in the sludge. Factors influencing rapid, effective, and adequate polysaccharide degradation will be identified and verified by addition of slime-degrading microbial cultures, their bacteriophages, and extracted depolymerase enzymes to model systems of slime-containing sludges.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: Enzyme products can be commercialized by biotechnological companies as the viable sludge conditioning reagent.
