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For a quick introduction of LuminUltra's capabilities in this market, go here.

Background

Biological wastewater treatment, in its simplest form, is the conversion of biodegradable waste products from municipal or industrial sources by biological means. The practice of using a controlled biological population to degrade waste has been used for centuries, but while early wastewater treatment processes were quite simple, they have become more and more complex over time. Today, treatment of biodegradable wastes prior to discharge has become an essential part of municipal and industrial operations.

Additional Information:

• Wastewater: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wastewater
• Municipal (Sewage) Treatment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment
• Industrial Wastewater: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_wastewater_treatment

How can ATP monitoring help?

LuminUltra has developed the first and only commercial test kit able to accurately measure true living biomass activity and health in wastewater treatment! LuminUltra’s QuenchGone21 Wastewater (QG21W) test kit provides complete results within 5 minutes, allowing real-time assessment of bioreactor efficiency and stability.

The ability to always be aware and in control of biomass health allows you take preventative action sooner than ever before to prevent process upsets before they happen and minimize operating costs!

Use of QG21W provides wastewater treatment operators with the ability to:

• Measure and differentiate between living biomass, dead biomass, and inert solids.
• Measure biomass health through the Biomass Stress Index (BSI).
• Determine the percentage and distribution of active biomass in any bioreactor.
• Optimize oxygen, nutrients, and bioaugmentation products.
• Optimize treatment parameters and in doing so reduce operating costs.
• Prevent process upsets by detecting toxicity at any point in the system.
• Detect the onset of settling problems like bulking or deflocculation before it is too late.

Types of Wastewater Treatment

• Activated Sludge – the most common type of biological wastewater treatment process used world-wide. This process involves a tank or basin to which oxygen and (in some cases) nutrients are fed to support a suspended biological population. The “mixed liquor” from the bioreactor then flows to secondary clarification where treated effluent overflows out the top while settled sludge is recycled back to the front of the bioreactor. This sludge recycle, or Return Activated Sludge (RAS), helps balance the biomass population in the bioreactor. Variations may include Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBR's) and Membrane Bioreactors (MBR's).

Additional information:

Conventional Activated Sludge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_sludge

Membrane Bioreactors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_bioreactor

Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBR):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequencing_batch_reactor

• Anaerobic Systems – require much less maintenance but involve a delicate balance of primary degraders and methanogens to break down waste. Anaerobic systems are usually very large and can sometimes have non-uniform biomass distribution. ATP tests at multiple locations can indicate flow patterns, dead zones, and growth stratification (by testing multiple depths). Routine ATP testing at multiple locations within digesters can help optimize sludge blow-down practices.

Additional information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digesters

• Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Systems – this specialized type of anaerobic system uses a suspended “blanket” of anaerobic microorganisms through which raw wastewater flows and is treated. Most UASB systems operate with the goal of methane production, so ATP monitoring in this situation can help assess the process’ biogas production capacity through routine monitoring of biological activity and health.

Additional information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UASB

• Attached Growth Systems – Treatment plants often use media on which biomass will attach and grow, providing additional surface area on which treatment can occur. In these situations, the media can be completely immersed in UltraLyse 30²¹ to extract and measure tATP on the surface of the media. Vigorous mixing may be necessary to be sure that the attached growth is sloughed off so that UltraLyse 30²¹ can fully penetrate the solid matrix. This test may need to be optimized in terms of the volume of UltraLyse 30²¹ needed to ensure that the media can be fully submersed. Incubation time to ensure complete extraction may also need to be modified. Several tests should be done with varying extraction times to optimize this protocol.

Additional information (Trickling Filter): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickling_filter

• Biological Nutrient Removal – BNR systems use nitrification to treat and remove Ammonia from substrate. Nitrifying bacteria, which convert Ammonia to nitrate and nitrite, require special conditions to grow:
  • Specific pH
  • High temperatures
  • High un-ionized ammonia concentrations
  • Low alkalinity
  • High sludge ages

While ATP monitoring will not provide an indication of the population of nitrifying or denitrifying bacteria in a BNR process, ATP provides significant value by giving a more accurate determination of specific activity (e.g. nitrogen removed per hour per mg ATP, phosphate liberated or removed per hour per mg ATP). If undesirable or irrelevant organisms start taking over the total population, these ratios will decrease. Similarly, if the relevant populations are stressed, then these ratios will also decrease. Just measuring nutrient removal rate on its own is not as informative.

Furthermore, some chronic stresses may not be revealed until the population crashes, in a similar way to how they are not always revealed by measuring OUR. While ATP only measures the stress of the total population, this still has the potential to reveal general chronic stress. Additional specialization may be possible by adding various inhibitors (e.g. nitrification inhibitors), and observing the response that this creates. Also, specialized tests such as Ammonia uptake normalized to AVSS can provide an inferred measure of "nitrification potential". Contact us for additional guidance!

Additional Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment#Nutrient_removal

Regulations

In most jurisdictions, government regulations are put in place to regulate treated wastewater quality prior to discharge into the environment. Discharge limits on Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), nutrients (e.g. Nitrogen, Phosphorous, etc.), pH, and other water quality parameters. It is therefore critical to maintain a stable wastewater process with an adequate biomass population size so that treated effluent is of acceptable quality. 

Additional Information:

US EPA Guidelines: http://water.epa.gov/scitech/wastetech/guide/index.cfm

Environment Canada: Management of Wastewater Treatment Systems: ·http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/plcy/cdshtm/318-gl6-cd-eng.shtml