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Pre-treatment processes have been developed in order to improve subsequent sludge treatment and disposal. Disintegration of sludge solids in the aqueous phase changes the sludge structure and solubilizes organic matter. This paper provides an overview of the applications of wet disintegration in wastewater and sludge treatment. Applied disintegration techniques such as mechanical, thermal, chemical and biological methods are briefly described. The methods are compared regarding energy consumption, operational reliability and stage of development for application on wastewater treatment plants. Mechanical and thermal methods appear to be most suitable at this stage. The effects of pre-treatment on subsequent sludge treatment processes and the wastewater treatment are described. The performance of various methods is assessed. For the improvement of stabilization, mechanical and ozone treatment as well as thermal treatment perform best. Dewatering can be enhanced by thermal and freeze/thaw treatment. All methods show positive effects in the reduction of the number of pathogens. Pre-treatment leads to secondary effects like the generation of recalcitrant compounds and odor, which is mainly a problem of thermal and ozone treatment. The evaluation of capital and operational costs is difficult, because of the lack of full-scale experience. Especially thermal, freeze/thaw and biological treatments can be realized at low costs if the conditions are appropriate. Nevertheless, the economic efficiency has to be investigated critically for each individual application.

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Abstract. Rhea's magnetospheric interaction is simulated using a three-dimensional, hybrid plasma simulation code, where ions are treated as particles and electrons as a massless, charge-neutralizing fluid. In consistency with Cassini observations, Rhea is modeled as a plasma absorbing obstacle. This leads to the formation of a plasma wake (cavity) behind the moon. We find that this cavity expands with the ion sound speed along the magnetic field lines, resulting in an extended depletion region north and south of the moon, just a few Rhea radii (R Rh ) downstream. This is a direct consequence of the comparable thermal and bulk plasma velocities at Rhea. Perpendicular to the magnetic field lines the wake's extension is constrained by the magnetic field. A magnetic field compression in the wake and the rarefaction in the wake sides is also observed in our results. This configuration reproduces well the signature in the Cassini magnetometer data, acquired during the close flyby to Rhea on November 2005. Almost all plasma and field parameters show an asymmetric distribution along the plane where the corotational electric field is contained. A diamagnetic current system is found running parallel to the wake boundaries. The presence of this current system shows a direct corelation with the magnetic field configuration downstream of Rhea, while the resulting j×B forces on the ions are responsible for the asymmetric structures seen in the velocity and electric field vector fields in the equatorial plane. As Rhea is one of the many plasma absorbing moons of Saturn, we expect that this case study should be relevant for most lunar-type interactions at Saturn.

The nature of solar wind turbulence in the dissipation range at scales much smaller than the large MHD scales remains under debate. Here a two-dimensional model based on the hybrid code abbreviated as A.I.K.E.F. is presented, which treats massive ions as particles obeying the kinetic Vlasov equation and massless electrons as a neutralizing fluid. Up to a certain wavenumber in the MHD regime, the numerical system is initialized by assuming a superposition of isotropic Alfvén waves with amplitudes that follow the empirically confirmed spectral law of Kolmogorov. Then turbulence develops and energy cascades into the dispersive spectral range, where also dissipative effects occur. Under typical solar wind conditions, weak turbulence develops as a superposition of normal modes in the kinetic regime. Spectral analysis in the direction parallel to the background magnetic field reveals a cascade of left-handed Alfvén/ion-cyclotron waves up to wave vectors where their resonant absorption sets in, as well as a continuing cascade of right-handed fast-mode and whistler waves. Perpendicular to the background field, a broad turbulent spectrum is found to be built up of fluctuations having a strong compressive component. Ion-Bernstein waves seem to be possible normal modes in this propagation direction for lower driving amplitudes. Also signatures of short-scale pressure-balanced structures (very oblique slow-mode waves) are found.