Sewage Treatment and Bacteria
Sewage Treatment and Bacteria
Bacteria may be aerobic, anaerobic or facultative. Aerobic bacteria require oxygen for life support whereas anaerobes can sustain life without oxygen. Facultative bacteria have the capability of living either in the presence or in the absent of oxygen. In the typical sewage treatment plant, oxygen is added to improve the functioning of aerobic bacteria and to assist them in maintaining superiority over the anaerobes. Agitation, settling, pH and other controllable are carefully considered and employed as a means of maximizing the potential of bacterial reduction of organic in the wastewater.
Single-celled organisms grow and when they have attained a certain size, divide, becoming two. Assuming an adequate food supply, they then grow and divide again like the original cell. Every time a cell splits, approximately every 20 to 30 minutes, a new generation occurs. This is known as the exponential or logarithmic growth phase. At the exponential growth rate, the largest number of cells is produced in the shortest period of time. In nature and in the laboratory, this growth cannot be maintained indefinitely, simply because the optimum environment of growth cannot be maintained. The amount of growth is the function of two variables: - environment and food. The pattern which actually results is known as the bacterial growth rate curve. Initially dehydrated products (dry) must first re-hydrate and acclimate in a linear growth phase before the exponential rate is reached.
Microorganisms and their enzyme systems are responsible for many different chemical reactions produced in the degradation of organic matter. As the bacteria metabolize, grow and divide they produce enzymes. These enzymes are high molecular weight proteins.
It is important to recognize the fact that colonies of bacteria are literally
factories for the production of enzymes. The enzymes which are manufactured by
the bacteria will be appropriate to the substrate in which the enzyme will be
working and so you have automatic production of the right enzyme for the
biological reduction of any waste material, provided you have the right bacteria
to start with. Enzymes do not reproduce whereas as bacteria do.
Enzymes in biochemical reactions act as organic catalysts. The enzymes actually
become a part of the action, but after having caused it, split off from it and
are themselves unchanged. After the biochemical reactions are complete and
products formed, the enzyme is released to catalyze another reaction. The rate
of reaction may be increase by increasing the quantity of the substrate or
temperature up to a certain point, but beyond this, the rate of reaction ceases
to increase because the enzyme concentration limits it.
All treatment plants should be designed to take advantage of the
decomposition of organic materials by bacterial activity. This is something you
can equate to lower costs, increased capacity, and an improved quality of
effluent; even freedom from bad odors which may typically result when anaerobe
bacteria become dominant and in their decomposition process, produce hydrogen
sulfide gas and similar by-products.
Consider the fact that the total organic load of wastewater or sewage is
composed of constantly changing constituent; it would be quite difficult to
degrade all of these organics by the addition of one enzyme, or even several
enzymes. Enzymes are specific catalysts and do not reproduce. What is needed is
the addition of an enzyme manufacturing system right in the sewage that can be
pre - determined as to its activity and performance and which has the initial or
continuing capacity to reduce waste.
At the present time, the addition of specifically cultured bacteria seems to
be the least expensive and most generally reliable way to accomplish desirable
results. When you add the right bacteria in proper proportions to the
environment, you have established entirely new parameters of potential for the
treatment situation. From what has been presented above, bacterial / enzyme
products by NT-MAX will serve to enhance the operational performance of
municipal sewage treatment plants, septic systems, grease traps, food processing
waste systems, lagoons, lift stations fish ponds, water estuaries or any system
where waste organics are a problem.