Help It Foam

Ever since housewives started dunking the family's dirty clothes and dishes in synthetic detergents, the nation's sewers have been swamped by an expanding flow of foam. Down the drainpipe, on through the sewage-disposal plant, the synthetic cleaners keep right on bubbling until contaminated rivers froth like lager beer. No matter what tricks they have tried, sanitary engineers have had small success in keeping the troublesome bubbles down. Egyptian-born Chemical Engineer Ibrahim Abdulla Eldib now insists that the best solution is to help the stuff foam.

A longtime student of the detergent dilemma--first at the Esso Research & Engineering Co. and later in his own Newark laboratory--Dr. Eldib builds his argument on the detergents' chemical structure. Detergents are compounds made of long molecules, and each molecule has a water-loving and a water-hating end. When the molecules are dissolved in water, their water-hating ends grab firmly at any grease that is present. This accounts for the detergents' cleansing ability. They also grab at water-air surfaces, which is what makes them collect bubbles and form foam.

Dr. Eldib takes sewage as it comes from the treatment plant, still heavily contaminated with detergents, and pipes it into a vertical cylinder. Air blown through fine holes in the bottom of the cylinder stirs up billions of bubbles that rise through the sewage and attract the detergent molecules. The froth is then drawn out of the cylinder, carrying 95% of the detergent with it and also other organic contaminants that may be in the sewage. The bubbles soon collapse, and the detergent collects in a small amount of liquid that is easily treated and disposed of. It can be dumped into any river without causing it to foam. After chlorination, says Engineer Eldib, it may even be pure enough for drinking. Short of selling housewives on the idea of returning to old-fashioned cleansers. Dr. Eldib's bubbles seem the best way yet devised for dealing with bubbly detergents.

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