Unique approach to inline fermentation stabilizes biological phosphorus removal

As part of the WEFTEC 2023 proceedings, the Water Environment Federation published a paper entitled “Unique Approach to Inline Fermentation Stabilizes Biological Phosphorus Removal.” In the paper, EnviroMix’s Sarah Elger and John Koch, along with plant superintendents Bryan Clor and Cody Norwood, review two facilities that upgraded traditional anaerobic selectors with BioMix-DC Enhanced Anaerobic Mixing System (link to product page) to achieve improved biological phosphorus removal.

Abstract 

Many facilities do not have consistent or sufficient volatile fatty acids (VFA) available in the influent wastewater to facilitate efficient and effective biological phosphorus removal. The lack of influent VFA content has driven facilities to modify plant operations, taking advantage of influent carbon to generate their own VFA to ensure consistent biological phosphorus removal to maintain low effluent phosphorus concentrations. An intermittent mixing strategy with gentle pulses of compressed gas allows for VFA generation and transport to facilitate more stable effluent phosphorus. This paper reviews two water resource recovery facilities that recently upgraded their traditional anaerobic selectors to include inline fermentation with an intermittent mixing strategy to produce VFA for improved biological phosphorus removal. One plant increased phosphorus removal efficiency from 85% to 95%, while the other plant saw consistently lower effluent total phosphorus below 0.2 mg/L.