How Microbes Improve Aerobic Wastewater Treatment Efficiency

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Wastewater from municipal and industrial sources needs proper treatment before being released into the environment.

The untreated wastewater is a threat to the environment and human health because it contains volatile organic compounds, toxic substances, and poisonous chemicals.

Wastewater is thus treated in plants where physical, biological, and chemical treatment takes place.

Biological treatment of wastewater is of special significance as most of the solid organic waste is treated, and water is purified maximum in this stage.

The two biological processes involved are aerobic treatment and anaerobic treatment.

Microorganisms In Aerobic Wastewater Treatment

In aerobic wastewater treatment, microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and other microbes act aggressively on the organic compounds, which are known as high-energy forms of carbon, with the help of oxygen dissolved in wastewater.

It is then converted into the substrate, which is consumed by microbes as energy and used for metabolism.

This results in a reduction of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), which is the measure of organic pollutants present in wastewater.

There are two types of microorganisms: heterotrophic and autotrophic. The heterotrophs use the fermentation process to break down the complex organic compounds into simpler forms.

They form biomass using organic carbon and use the same for energy and cellular synthesis. On the other hand, autotrophs break down simpler forms like carbon dioxide for cellular material.

It removes nitrogen from the wastewater.

In this way, microorganisms play a major role in treating wastewater and making it less harmful for releasing to the environment.

Challenges

Many biological and environmental factors affect the function of microbes in aerobic wastewater treatment. These include temperature, pH, oxygen, nutrients, types of toxic substances, and much more.

A proper environment is a must for microbes to thrive and work at their best and also for a high biochemical oxidation rate. Bioreactors of different types are designed to achieve this goal.

Some of the common challenges in aerobic wastewater treatment include:

The systems are designed with a specific measurement that can manage BOD levels up to a limit. Once this limit is exceeded, it can lead to overflow, toxic odor, and a dangerous atmosphere for humans.
The growth rate of microbes is dependent on the temperature. Due to poor conditions and lack of maintenance of the treatment system, the temperature can go down. This decreases biological reactions. Thus resulting in poor BOD degradation.
Variation in hydraulic loads and significant diurnal variations leads to poor biomass or loss of it. Sudden variations can cause shock loads and toxicity.

Moreover, the excessive amount of wastewater generated due to the increasing urban population and industrialization in recent times has overloaded aerobic wastewater treatment systems with a dangerous amount of toxic substances.

The natural microorganisms are unable to treat the wastewater effectively and reduce it to levels needed as per the standards.

This has resulted in malfunction and failure of the system and high levels of toxicity in released effluent.

There is an urgent need for innovative biological solutions for productive aerobic wastewater treatment processes and better functionality of the system.

Organica Biotech provides one of the best and most effective microbial solutions for aerobic wastewater treatment with its product Cleanmaxx.

The advanced concentrated consortium of uniquely functioning bacteria has the following features:

Helps in rapid biomass generation
Withstand fluctuations in wastewater quality
Accelerates COD/BOD reduction by degrading organic load
Works in Activated Sludge Process (ASP), Sequence Bed Reactor (SBR), Lagoon process, Moving Bed Bioreactor (MBBR), Membrane Bioreactor (MBR), Rotating Biological Contractor (RBC), and Fluidised Air Bed Reactor.
It can be used in a wide range of industries to tackle the issues commonly found in aerobic wastewater treatment.
It is used to commission all types of aerobic wastewater treatment systems.

Use Cleanmaxx microbial solution for effective and efficient aerobic wastewater treatment.