BIOSOLUTIONS 

June, 2005

Volume 5, No. 2

Contents:

1. Cutting Through the FOG, Naturally

2. Meet Technical Director Dick Bleam

3. Micro-COD Can Predict Trouble in Wastewater Treatment

4. New Case Studies Available

5. Have You Seen Me?

6. Bioscience at Bioremediation Symposium

Figure 1

Cutting Through the FOG, Naturally

In the last issue of Biosolutions we published a letter from a restaurant owner about his use of biological products to keep drains, sewer lines and grease traps free-flowing. For every restaurant, from gourmet to fast food, clogged drains and grease traps can mean major problems– expensive repair calls, odor, loss of business and bad community relations. Eliminating these problems is such a high priority that many establishments spend considerable amounts of money on periodic pumping and disposal. The letter-writer saved about $1600 annually with biological treatment, subtracting the cost of the additive from previous annual costs for pumping, waste disposal and drain service.

Figure 2

In the past, drain and grease trap clogs were attacked mechanically, which was costly and time consuming, or with chemicals, solvents, enzymes and surfactants. Nowadays, more and more municipalities are prohibiting the use by restaurants of chemical drain cleaners. Their engineers have discovered that solvents capable of dissolving restaurant FOG (Fat, Oil and Grease) merely redeposit the material downstream, in sewer lines and lift stations, and in some cases may decrease the effectiveness of sewage treatment plants. Figures 1 and 2 show a lift station before and after application of a biological cleaning agent. 

Enzymes, which bacteria produce naturally to break down longer-chain organic molecules, do not work for very long on their own, and may actually produce acidity problems. The lipase enzyme, which initiates grease breakdown, converts it to glycerol and fatty acids. In the absence of a viable bacterial population to complete the degradation process rapidly, the fatty acids build up to a point at which most biological activity slows down due to low pH. This is especially a problem in fast-food restaurants with high FOG concentrations. 

Chemical drain cleaners are corrosive and hazardous to personnel. Such cleaners are toxic to microbes and incompatible with sewer systems and treatment plants They may damage plumbing lines and fixtures and are considerably more expensive than biological products, when maintenance costs are factored in.

In contrast, biological additives, which contain the same micro-organisms responsible for effective sewage treatment, work for both the restaurant and its home community. While most of the FOG-attacking micro-organisms attach themselves to solid deposits, some are washed downstream, where they help keep lines and lift stations clean, and contribute to the biomass of the wastewater treatment plant. In an ideal world, such a win-win situation would be welcomed by both restaurants and towns. This has been the case increasingly, since biological drain cleaners were introduced over 20 years ago, but some still worry about image problems – to the extent that restaurants which have been using the products successfully for years still refuse to admit it publically. This is because of something called “the bug that ate Pittsburgh” syndrome, as well as the general public’s early indoctrination against “germs.”

All of the bacteria in Bioscience products are naturally occurring, non-disease-causing strains which have been tested, selected and grown to accelerate the break-down of FOG. Each product is completely safe to use and totally biodegradable. The synergistic bacterial strains use common drain-obstructing materials– FOG, starch, protein and cellulose-- as food, breaking up the waste substances into smaller particles and creating more bacterial cells for further waste degradation. The smaller molecules can then flow easily through plumbing.

Bacteriology 101

Bacteria are single celled, microscopic organisms found in trillions everywhere in nature– in the soil, in the ocean, in the atmosphere and in our bodies. They play an extremely important role in nature by breaking down substances (molecules) into smaller molecules that can be readily used as food by other organisms, a process called decomposition. Decomposition is essential to bacterial growth and reproduction, just as it is to all living things. When the food supply is depleted, the bacterial strains that rely upon it either die off, decline significantly in numbers or become dormant, thus saving Pittsburgh. Bioscience MICROCAT® dry plumbing maintenance products (MICROCAT DNT, ST and XS) are approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for use in sewage and drain lines of federally inspected meat, poultry and egg processing plants.

There are two main types of bacteria, aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic bacteria require oxygen to live and multiply. Anaerobic bacteria do not require molecular oxygen for respiration. They can use other electron acceptors (nitrate, sulfate, ferrous iron, carbon dioxide, etc.) for energy. By-products of some anaerobic bacteria, such as volatile fatty acids and sulfide, are usually responsible for the foul odors arising from regions of a piping system where oxygen is not available.

These main categories contain many subdivisions. Most of Bioscience’s MICROCAT products contain both aerobic and facultative anaerobic bacteria – species that can live in environments that range from completely anaerobic to oxygen rich. They are designed to prevent the formation of odorous by-products. MICROCAT ANL contains a unique blend of microbes that can use sulfides and volatile fatty acids for food, either in the presence of light, or when small amounts of oxygen are present.

Growth Enhancers

The bacteria in MICROCAT products secrete enzymes to break down food molecules. The formulations designed for plumbing maintenance contain added enzymes, which are protected until they can be utilized. They act immediately upon application to break down large organic molecules. Other biodegradable substances called surfactants and natural penetrants enable certain large, water-soluble molecules to be more easily digested. The molecules that constitute FOG, however, are largely insoluble in water. The surfactants and penetrants disperse or break up deposits of these substances to make bacterial enzyme action more effective.

How They Are Used

MICROCAT FOG-cutting products, available in both powder and liquid form, may be applied at any point upstream of a potential trouble spot such as a grease trap, pipe elbow, floor drain or lift station. This can be done manually or with liquid or dry feeders available from Bioscience. Dry products are reconstituted with luke-warm water before application at the rate of 1 quart or liter per 4 oz. of dry product.

A typical restaurant or institution would require about three ounces of dry product weekly for routine maintenance in the kitchen and public service areas. Preventive maintenance doses for grease traps range from 4 ounces weekly for a 10 to 50-gallon system, to one pound for a 500-1,000-gallon system.

Figure 3

MICROCAT products work throughout the plumbing system, including main and subsidiary pipes, elbows in pipe lines and below sinks, grease traps and floor drains. MICROCAT accelerating compounds allow the bacteria to attach readily to accumulated deposits . Within hours after the initial action of the broad spectrum enzymes, the bacteria begin to synthesize their own enzymes to further break down obstructions. The effect is long-lasting, and to those who have not tried biological products before, surprising, in terms of cleanliness and lack of odor during periodic inspections. The product of choice for restaurant plumbing maintenance is MICROCAT-DNT dry powder, with a higher microbial count than other biological products. With new dry feeders (Figure 3) available from Bioscience, it can be applied routinely at regular intervals with no more effort than filling the hopper. A similar product, MICROCAT-GEL is supplied in liquid form for economical metering into plumbing systems through liquid dispensers. Such metering is not only more reliable than manual dosing, but also may be less expensive in terms of man-hours and product usage.

Both liquid and dry products should be added at night, or when water usage is minimal, to give microorganisms time to adapt and adhere to pipe and trap surfaces. Automated bioaugmentation has been shown to reduce plumbing and pumping costs by up to 65 percent in restaurant applications. Tests in a large West Coast city have shown no increase in effluent BOD at the sewage treatment plant when restaurants use biological drain maintenance. As mentioned above, city engineers found that since bioaugmentation introduces beneficial organisms downstream, its effects on collection systems and wastewater treatment have been beneficial.

Other FOG Cutters

In addition to MICROCAT-DNT and MICROCAT-GEL drain and trap cleaners, Bioscience also offers MICROCAT-XS septic tank cleaner, MICROCAT-ST for pH and odor control in septic tanks, and MICROCAT-ECL, a cleaning and deodorizing product in liquid form that contains no micro-organisms. MICROCAT-DNTHT is a drain and trap cleaner with higher amounts of sulfide-eating microbes for severe sulfide odor applications.

Bioscience plumbing maintenance products have been used successfully in bakeries, bottling plants, meat packing plants and slaughter houses, poultry processing plants, butcher shops and canneries, as well as in restaurants and institutions. For further information and case studies, visit our web site at www.bioscienceinc.com,

Bioscience Profile:

Technical Director Richard D. Bleam

As technical director, since 1987, for a company that makes a wide variety of biological products and analytical instruments, plus assisting with clean-up of contaminated sites, Dick Bleam wears many hats at Bioscience. His abiding interest, however, is the use of bacteria to help restore soils that have been contaminated, depleted by over-use of fertilizers, or salinated from irrigation, one of the most important aspects of feeding a growing world population.
“Microbes won’t do the job alone, but coupled with added organic matter, they can provide nutrient forms that will help plant life recover.”

Dick also supervises treatability testing– determining, usually by means of electrolytic respirometry- which methods, nutrients and bacterial strains are most effective in treating specific wastewater streams or contaminated soil and groundwater.
Accenting the international aspects of the company, Dick is now working on methods for decontaminating refueling sites in Florida, where soil contains spilled diesel fuel, and sites in Ecuador, where contaminated soils may contain various petroleum products or crude oil . A manual for the use of biological methods on such sites is being up-dated. It was first written for a similar job in Poland.

Dick and his wife, Lou Anderson Bleam, live in Easton, Pa. They have three children and Dick spends much of his leisure time in coaching soccer and attending games to cheer on his 17-year-old son.

Micro-COD Test Can Predict Trouble Before It Starts

The traditional Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) test is becoming the “Canary On Duty” for many wastewater treatment plants, predicting possible plant upsets before they occur, like the canaries once used by miners to detect potentially toxic gas concentrations.

A standard EPA-accepted or approved COD test is required for EPA reporting, but a more rapid – and mercury-free–method is now available for testing influent streams when reporting is not required. When test results are needed immediately for process control decisions, quicker and easier is definitely better. Our COD test is known as “Micro-COD” because it uses such a small sample.

The test measures organic and inorganic compounds that can be readily oxidized. High COD in the influent can signal an abnormal event such as slug loading of BOD or industrial discharge. High COD in the effluent may indicate that a toxic chemical is inhibiting or killing the biomass, or that a non-biodegradable compound is passing through the plant. As a rough prediction, for domestic wastewater, COD is generally about 2.5 times the five-day BOD.

A standard Bioscience COD test takes two hours. A 2.5 ml. sample is placed in a twist-tube with pre-measured reagent, digested for 2 hours at 150 degrees C, and read in an inexpensive colorimeter.

A quick variation substitutes a mercury-free reagent, which allows for simpler and usually cheaper disposal, while shortening the digestion time to as little as 15 minutes. Shortened digestion time typically results in COD readings 5 to 15 percent lower than those using standard digestion. Tests with varying digestion times should be used to confirm that the results are within acceptable accuracy for a particular wastewater.

The colorimeter microprocessor selects low or standard COD range, displays the test sequence and indicates results in ppm. It displays the appropriate built-in light filter to match one of 40 programmed test parameters. It also indicates percent light transmittance and absorption so that users can develop calibration curves for proprietary analyses.

The system uses the same twist-tubes as our EPA-approved accu-TEST COD method, which requires a spectrophotometer to conform to EPA Method 410.4. The colorimeter can also be used with a wide variety of other pre-measured reagents to measure specific toxic or inhibitory compounds in the waste stream.

For further information call 1-800-627-3069, or visit our web site at www.bioscienceinc.com.

New Case Studies Available 

Bioaugmentation not only cuts through FOG in restaurant grease traps and municipal sewer lines– it also saves you money at the gas pump... well, only an infinitesimal amount, but new Case Study BSE075 shows how bioaugmentation, plus our new degreaser, MICROCAT-BK-AC increased oil flow and reduced maintenance costs at one US well by reducing paraffin build-up. Every little bit helps.

The restaurant application mentioned in our lead article is detailed in Case Study BSE077.

Municipalities can save even more money than restaurants by cutting FOG at problem lift stations, as shown in BSE076.

And a laboratory demonstration indicates how much oil and grease can be reduced in refinery wastewater by the right combination of bacterial strains, in BSE078. Call us for your free illustrated copies or e-mail bioscience@bioscienceinc.com.

Have You Seen Me?

These odd-looking creatures are the higher life forms that should appear under a microscope when examining the effluent of a well-operated treatment plant. Colors in these artist’s renderings are for purposes of differentiation only. We have a few 16x20 glossy posters of the most common organisms for ready- reference on the laboratory wall. If you would like one, without obligation, give us a call at 1-800-627-3069 or e-mail bioscience@biosciencei nc.com.                                                                              

Bioremediation Symposium

Jay Hill manned Booth 503 at the In-Situ and On-Site Bioremediation Symposium, June 6 through 9 in Baltimore. MD. Bioscience exhibited MICROCAT products for spill cleanup and soil and groundwater remediation, plus the BI-2000 respirometer for treatability testing, product evaluation and remediation system design.