Other Processes
A few cities, including Oklahoma City and Santa Monica, Cal., have electrolysis treatment plants. The process consists in passing the sewage between a system of electrodes. The change is brought about by chemical reaction from newly formed chemical reagents produced by the decomposition of inorganic compounds already in solution. It is still regarded as an unestablished process.
Boston has within the last year been testing a new process of sewage purification invented and patented by a Boston chemist. By the addition of an acid, an attempt is made to precipitate the bulk of suspended matter and to form a sludge which can be dried and degreased thereby producing a salable and greaseless fertilizer as well as recovering valuable grease. Experiments by E. S. Dorr gave results so full of promise that arrangements were made for a study of the process under the supervision of the Sanitary Research Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Robert Spurr Weston gives the results of this study in a recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health. His conclusions are that “with facts at hand the process would be very satisfactory for Boston from a sanitary standpoint, and is more promising economically than any other known method.” He includes in his comparison the activated sludge process. An experiment by Boston on a larger scale has been recommended.