Ammonia in its uncharged state (pH > 8) is identified as the virucidal agent responsible for inactivating picornaviruses in wastewater sludge.
May guide pH-adjusted sludge treatment for poliovirus control; leaves open applicability to other viruses or real-world systems.
Anaerobically digested sludge contains an agent that causes irreversible inactivation of poliovirus. It has now been shown that the agent responsible for this activity is ammonia. The effect of ammonia on poliovirus appears to be typical for picornaviruses, but reovirus, an enteric virus of another group, is quite resistant to this compound. Because ammonia is not virucidal in its charged state, it expresses significant activity only at pH values greater than 8. Therefore, increasing the pH of sludge should cause rapid inactivation of indigenous picornaviruses.
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Ward et al. (1977) studied this question.
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