Greetings from EnviTreat

In our January 2006 newsletter, we described EnviTreat’s specialization in diagnostic services to environmental engineering firms, industries, and municipalities. These services include: Treatability Testing, Biodegradation Testing, Toxicity Assessments, On-site Trouble-Shooting, and Biological Process Modeling. We recently have added On-Site Assistance with Purchase and Use of Respirometers to our list. EnviTreat’s engineers have over 60 years of combined experience with using respirometers for a variety of wastewater treatment applications. This experience allows us to assist you with the selection of a respirometer system that is best suited for your application. We are not affiliated with any respirometer manufacturer and can be unbiased in our evaluation. We can assist you further through preparation of testing protocols for specific applications, training laboratory analysts with respirometric test procedures including: kinetic analyses, biodegradation testing, toxicity testing, and nitrification inhibition. We also can train plant engineers with application of respirometric measurements to plant operations, including: OUR fingerprinting of wastewater biodegradation characteristics and operation by the set-point OUR method.

Cost-Effectiveness of Treatability Testing

Treatability testing provides a database for making decisions about the suitability of using specific process options and helps to optimize the sizing of treatment units. It’s not uncommon for a municipality or industry to spend over $10 million on a new treatment process or upgrade of an existing process. Treatability testing can be viewed as an investment if its results can save even 1% of these costs. And treatability testing provides valuable information about factors affecting treatment such as the impact of solids retention time (SRT) on process performance and waste sludge yields. Treatability testing also is becoming more important in cases where extremely high effluent quality is required, for example, BOD₅ < 5 mg/L, NH₃-N < 0.5 mg/L, total P < 0.2 mg/L.

Assistance with Solving Performance Problems

EnviTreat specializes further in helping to identify factors that cause upset or failure of treatment processes. We have become especially aware of the impacts of nutrient and trace mineral deficiencies. Symptoms of such deficiencies include excess biopolymer formation resulting in viscous bulking and foaming. We have developed unique ways to identify the cause of such problems and can recommend solutions that are quite cost effective.

Toxicity Assessment

In industrial settings, especially food processing facilities, we are seeing more need for enhanced cleaning and disinfection requirements to avoid spread of disease-causing organisms such as E. coli, and Salmonella. Many of these cleaning and disinfecting agents can be toxic to treatment plants. EnviTreat can test the toxicity of these agents in advance of their selection. By identifying threshold toxic concentrations, we can help your plant avoid the risk of upset or failure of the treatment process.

Publications And Papers

The following papers and case studies describe ways in which EnviTreat can provide services to your treatment plant. Contact us by email to receive copies.

A new book entitled “Respirometry for Environmental Science and Engineering” by James C. Young and Robert M. Cowan is now available. This book describes a wide range of applications of respirometers to the diagnosis of treatment plant performance problems and includes chapters on Fundamentals of Respirometry, Features of Commercial Respirometers, Applications of Respirometers, Biodegradation Kinetics, Respirometry for Activated Sludge Process Control, and Treatability Testing.

A paper entitled “Operation of Activated Sludge Processes by Set-Point Oxygen Uptake Rate” by James C. Young, Young Tai Cho and Hyung Mo Moon was presented at the 2004 Industrial Wastewater Treatment Symposium sponsored by the Water Environment Federation, Alexandria, VA. . This paper discusses a method developed by EnviTreat for operating an activated sludge process in a way that helps to compensate for toxic impacts, temperature changes and changes in wastewater treatability.

A paper entitled “Impact of Biopolymer Formation on Oxygen Uptake Reactions in Activated Sludge Processes” by Hyung-Mo Moon and James C. Young was presented at the 2005 WEFTEC conference in Washington D.C. sponsored by the Water Environment Federation, Alexandria, VA. This paper discusses potential causes of effects of biopolymer formation on viscous bulking and foaming in activated sludge processes and presents a way to use oxygen uptake rate fingerprints to identify the presence of biopolymers in mixed liquor solids.

Contact Us For More Information

Let us know how we can assist you by conducting treatability or other diagnostic tests to help optimize the performance of your treatment facilities. You can contact us by email at info@envitreat.com, by telephone at 479-927-2672, or by fax at 479-927-2459. We will reply promptly.