Destruction by Anaerobic Mesophilic and Thermophilic Digestion of Viruses and Indicator Bacteria Indigenous to Domestic Sludges

Abstract

In raw sludges and in mesophilically and thermophilically digested anaerobic sludges, large variations in numbers of viruses occurred over narrow ranges of numbers of fecal coliforms, total coliforms, and fecal streptococci, demonstrating that the bacteria were poor quantitative reflectors of the numbers of the viruses detected. Mesophilic and thermophilic digestion of anaerobic sludges destroyed all three indicator bacteria more rapidly than such digestion destroyed the viruses. The relative rates for the destruction of viruses, fecal coliforms, and fecal streptococci in the digested sludges were consistent over the 17-month study. Fecal coliforms were 7 to 8 times more sensitive than the viruses to mesophilic digestion and 9 to 10 times more sensitive to thermophilic digestion. Total coliforms were even more sensitive. The rates at which fecal streptococci were destroyed by mesophilic and thermophilic digestion of anaerobic sludges approached those at which the viruses were destroyed by those processes; this suggested that the rates at which fecal streptococci in sludges are destroyed by those processes may serve as useful indicators for the rates at which viruses in sludges are destroyed by those processes.