Monday, October 15, 2012

Importance Of Microbial Wastewater Treatment

By Leigh Bean


The practice of treating waste water began in the early 20th century. This is when there people began to be aware of roles of microbes in transmitting diseases. After Snow discovered waterborne disease in 1854 called cholera, people understood the relationship between diseases experienced and water consumed from well and other water points. They started coming up with ways of treating such as microbial wastewater treatment to prevent the diseases.

This method achieves several objectives that are beneficial to the people using the treated water. They comprise prevention of algae blooming through removal of excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates. All organic matter should also be removed plus non-biodegradable, carcinogenic and toxic. The method also inactivates or gets rid of pathogenic and microbes that are responsible of transmitting waterborne infections.

According to documents, microbes have been used by many plants to treat both domestic and irrigation water. It is a natural and cheap way of treating water. In the contrary, these natural organisms deplete after a long time of use, therefore making the system incapable of removing the organic material. A system back up is therefore required to help continue the process and this is done by supplementing microbes to the system.

In the past, people used microbes in the secondary waste water management. These microscopic organisms got rid of organic material suspended in water. They are used in many systems such as lagoon, suspended and fixed systems. These systems have phases where the microbes are increased to quicken this process. Water treatment plants choose the type of systems they prefer and can manage easily.

Using a higher microorganism concentration in this process helps in removing the dissolved organic materials, including non-biodegradable ones quickly such as metals. Lagoon system is an example of system that mostly adds more organisms since it takes months to degrade waste to completion. Therefore, the process of degrading the waste is quickened by addition of more microbes in the waste water.

Microbes are useful in the primary process of treating water. These microscopic organisms break down bottom and dissolved solids in the water and use them as food. Some are taken to their systems and others are left in water. Therefore, little amount of sludge suspends in water and is removed through filtration. This process determines the effectiveness of secondary stage. Nitrates are also removed to prevent algae blooming and pollution.

The process is made more natural to minimize pollution. This is achieved by substituting chemicals such as chlorine with these microscopic organisms. They minimize sludge of the final product of the process; hence reduced sludge is discarded to the surrounding. Sludge is the main byproduct produced and should be treated before discarding it. The microbes help in this problem whereby they decompose the organic matter in waste water, reducing mud that should be disposed.

Nowadays, many water treatment plants employ the microbial wastewater treatment process to their systems. This is because it has improved efficiency and capacity and operation cost is cheaper than other processes. They also keep the process more natural, which is a vital goal for many water treatment firms. Consequently, pollution of water during the processes is greatly reduced, making it free from disease causing bacteria and safe to drink.




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