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Case Histories

Grease Control and  Lift-station Maintenance

Lift stations are notorious for filling up with debris, solids and tons of grease. The grease can become hard, form a shelf or ledge, or if too much, almost create a solid layer.  By using bacterial products to clean the grease, a long term solution is established for the lift station. The bacteria also benefit the pipes downstream as well as the wastewater treatment plant.

The bacteria actually consume the grease as a food source and permanently remove the grease.  Low maintenance dosages can then be used to keep the grease from building up and causing future problems.

This is a 5 Million Gallon a Day lift station that was filled with years of grease build-up.

There were thick solids build up in the corner

Here is how it looks now after using bacterial products to remove the grease.

  Except for a little bit of solids in the upper left corner, most of the grease and solids build-up are gone

Here is the upper right corner- clean and free flowing water as opposed to the above picture prior to addition of our biological products. The grease ledge is gone, the solids and chucks of grease are dissolved and there is circulation of water  and better mixing.

Find out how you can start your Grease Removal Program today

Grease Removal Case History Isreal

Additional Case Histories

Grease Control and Lift Stations

Food Plants

Animal Feed Lots-starting up a lagoon system

Pig Farm-

Odor Control

Papermill- BOD and TSS removal efficiency

Bioaugmentation at a Chicken Farm Lagoon

We were asked over a year ago to come in and troubleshoot for a papermill with a once through lagoon. We made some process recommendation, gave some training and revised their current bioaugmentation program. The final effluent had the best BOD in the history of the plant. But, since the plant was on a "sole source " agreement with a major supplier of all their chemicals, they were forced to go back to their original supplier for biological products.  Well, after just 6 months, the plants is back on our products and program. The results could not even come close on their program!

While we believe some of our products are specially formulated and are very good, the major thing we believe is important is the training, consulting, analyses and support that we have to offer.  But the real proof is in the final BOD number! Check to see how we compare. . . .

BOD final permit limits are 25 and TSS numbers are 30 ppm. We consistently hit close to 5 ppm BOD once the program was up and running! Very good for a papermill! Even the cold weather months with a normal slowdown in activity, the BOD was still on the mark!

Municipal Foaming and Nocardia- Case History

We started working with a municipality that had a history of foaming problems and Nocardia for years. They already were on a biological program.  We came in, audited the plant, made some process recommendations, changed the program to a dual program.  You can see solids build-up in the clarifier and the scum box is filled. The photo on the right is the thick Nocardia foam in the aeration basins.

For the first time the plant has actually seen MLSS in the aeration basins!

You can see the surface of the aeration basin, normal mlss and the scum box now only has a small amount of scum.

This plant will have to fight grease and foaming continually until it has an upgrade to the system, since it does not have prescreening to remove some of the grease and solids that do come in to normal municipal systems. Optimization of the primary, changes to the solids handling in the clarifier and a minor adjustment to the bacterial program will help to keep the plant running more smoothly though in the meantime!

Texas Barbecue Restaurant and Package plant

  We were asked to help with foaming and grease problems at a small package plant that handled wastewater from a Texas Barbecue Restaurant.

A dual program using liquid concentrated product upstream at the restaurant and using dried bacteria at the plant eliminated all of the foaming problems.

Tank Remediation at a PetroChemical Plant

We are working with a PetroChemical plant down in Louisana. They had an 800,000 gallon tank filled with wastewater that they wanted to clean up and empty out. We suggested a biological program-MicroSolv 400 for tank remediation.

The plant started the program and had the tank cleaned up in less than three weeks, yet the tank had been sitting there filled for over three years. They were tremendously impressed. They would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to haul out the waste.

Tank remediation is not really that hard. As long as the contents are organic, it is actually quite simple. To the bacteria, it is just food. Since the waste stream is already isolated, it becomes just a time and numbers game with the right species of bacteria. Inoculate the tank with bacteria, make sure the critical 5 are in place- (pH, D.O., temperature, N and P) and watch them go to work!

It does not really take long depending upon how much you seed the tank with. And the bacteria grow and multiply exponentially, so just sit back and wait. You wind up with a clean tank, clear effluent, and some bacteria residuals on the bottom of the tank that need to be disposed of- ( usually sent to the plants onsite dewatering system) or land applied.

Operator training, system optimization- Dairy processing

Audit Case History at a Dairy processing plant- Milk and Yogurt

This plant did not have too many problems running, but the SVI's were a bit high and they did spend a bit on polymer to dewater sludge. Solids handling were limited during the winter, due to the fact that land application of the sludge was required.
We walked through the plant, made suggestions on solids levels in the clarifiers. We looked under the microscope. They had a ton of filaments, Type 021N. We looked at their plant data. They did not add sufficient Nitrogen to the plant. They would get slugs of high BOD influent periodically. We recommended that they increase daily supplements of Nitrogen and when spills came through, "spill some nutrients also"!! The biggest problem people have with nutrients is dosing and trying to be conservative.
This plant did what we recommended though. The biggest benefit was the settling to the clarifier in the cold months. The 1/2 hour SVI had over a 62% reduction from 740 ml in the settleometer down to 280! This made a difference in solids handling also! What a simple fix, just add nutrients!!!!!!
 

Nutrient Optimization-How important are nutrients

Winery Start-up

We were asked to provide products for a brand new winery start-up. We started them on a dual program with bacterial product- Microclear 206 and MicroClear M100- micronutrients. The plant was supposed to have an influent of 8000, but some days, it got as high as 16,000. By using biological products, you can shorten the time for start-ups and increase the MLSS and get the plant up and running quickly.

There are things to watch when starting up a plant though, as serious white foaming can be a problem and levels must be monitored.

Capacity 1m3/Hr

pH 2.8

Temperature 90-95 degree c

Acetaldehyde 2300ppm

EG (mono-ethylene glycol) 150000ppm

2,methyle 1-1, 3 dioxane 260ppm

Dioxane 140ppm

Acetic Acid 110ppm

COD varies from 20000ppm to 30000ppm

Target COD is 10000ppm.

This tank has two sections, with approximate holding time of 55 hours. Its pH is adjusted by using caustic to the range pH 7.0. And temperature is also lowered by air stripping before hanging the brick. This also helps to remove VOC’s from the wastewater. . The retention time of the tank is about 55 hours.

Influent COD was 39000 at the start. After hanging Biobricks in the system, effluent COD was 19200 for the outlet in only 24 hours, a reduction of 51%. Nutrients were not added until the second day, and the effluent dropped again to 15380. Third day- 13000 from a start of 3900 in a tank in such a short time!!!!.

Additional pH adjustment and mixing, along with nutrient additions were recommended, but for first time results, this is actually quite amazing!

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