Technology development for the thermal wet oxidation of municipal biosolids

The Rotorua District Council in conjunction with Scion has recently established a wet oxidation pilot plant, situated at the Rotorua waste water treatment plant. The technology seeks to achieve a substantial solids reduction from waste through a thermal deconstruction process which breaks down the physical structure of material and segregates the solids into useable process outputs, such as readily degradable carbon feedstocks. In this paper, we report the basis for the selection and design of the pilot plant facility, outlining the laboratory scale experiments used to prove the concept for thermal deconstruction of municipal biosolids. Challenges encountered in the establishment of the pilot plant were discussed.