Experience with a pilot plant for the irradiation of sewage sludge: Experiments on the inactivation of viruses in sewage sludge after radiation treatment

Investigations examining the virus inactivating effect of a 60Co-plant have up to now been limited to attempts to isolate virus from sludge samples taken from sewage sludge before and after irradiation with 300 krad. As in these sludge samples the presence of virus could be proved only on a rather irregular basis, an experiment was carried out in which defined virus quantities were packed into capsules and mixed with the digested sludge. At the end of the hygienization process these capsules were removed from the sludge and examined for virus content. In addition one radiation volume (5.6 m3) was infected with attenuated polio virus type I and the virus content of the sludge titrated before and after the radiation treatment. (author)