Efficient Wastewater Treatment Technology Utilizes Naturally Occurring Bacteria

Innovation: Industry

Wastewater Compliance Systems

2008

Image: James Park / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Detoxification/Purification of Air/Water/Waste

Ecosystems must be effective at cleaning air, water, and waste because so much of what is in the air, water, and waste is valuable to organisms as resources. In contrast to functions that detoxify or purify at the organism level, this is at a larger scale. To be effective at the ecosystem level, it isn’t the individual efforts of a few organisms that detoxifies and purifies, but the actions of a wide diversity of organisms each contributing to the whole. For example, as water flows through an ecosystem, either aboveground or in the soil, a diversity of organisms take different actions to slow it down, capture excess nutrients from it, and break down harmful chemicals into more benign ones.

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Cycle Nutrients

In ecosystems, there is no such thing as waste. Instead, one organism’s waste can be considered as another organism’s resource, and the cycling of nutrients may be the most important form of recycling in living systems. But sometimes those nutrients are transformed by one organism into a form that isn’t readily used by other organisms. For example, lignin is a complex organic molecule found in the cell walls of plants. In a forest, it’s one of the hardest molecules to break down in woody vegetation. Therefore, ecosystems include organisms that are particularly well-adapted to break down different types of nutrients. In the case of lignin, some fungi and bacteria release lignin-modifying enzymes that can break down the lignin to form carbohydrates and other life-supporting chemicals.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Liquids

The most common liquid used by living systems is water, which they require to survive. But there are many other liquids that provide nourishment, play a role in defense mechanisms, or serve other purposes. Water varies in its availability; it is sometimes plentiful and sometimes very scarce or only available as fog or mist. To minimize the energy required to capture, absorb, or filter liquids, living systems have strategies that take advantage of the unique properties of the given liquid. For example, water moves from a gaseous to liquid state when it encounters a surface colder than the air. Plants in forests that experience fog and clouds more than rain have strategies that condense liquid water from moist air.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Chemical Entities

Living systems often require chemical elements and chemical compounds, including complex sugars, proteins, and odor-making compounds, to perform critical activities. These compounds exist in various states–solid, liquid, and gas–and are ubiquitous in soil, water, and air. This requires that living systems not only have ways to capture, absorb, or filter them, but also ways to differentiate among them, selecting those that are valuable or harmful. For example, mangrove trees live with their roots in salty water and sediments. Various mangrove species have different strategies for removing salt from the water they take in so that their tissues can use the fresh water.

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Brochures

Bio-Dome Information
1.6 MB PDF

Patents

Bio‐Domes from Wastewater Compliance Systems use naturally occurring biofilms to accelerate the removal of chemicals and organic materials in wastewater.

Benefits

Sustainable
Reduced cost
Increased space

Applications

Municipal and industrial wastewater treatment
Aquaculture

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities
Goal 12: Responsible Production & Consumption
Goal 15: Life on Land

Bioutilization

Bacteria

The Challenge

Water is essential for human survival, and access to clean drinking water is critical for good health. Contaminated drinking water can cause numerous health concerns, including exposure to viruses. As the world population continues to grow, traditional wastewater treatment will quickly reach capacity. The machines will not be able to remove the additional contaminants, and there will not be enough land to construct more facilities. Wastewater lagoons offer a viable alternative by utilizing biofilms to remove toxins from water. However, biofilm growth is limited by the amount of surface area available for growth.

Innovation Details

Bio-Domes sit at the bottom of wastewater treatment lagoons and consist of concentrically nested domes that are infused with air from underneath. These domes are coated with naturally occurring biofilms and provide an additional 2800 square feet of space for biofilms to grow. This helps to more effectively reduce contaminants in the water such as ammonia and nitrogen, similar to the process that occurs in wetlands.

Illustration of water and air movement through the Bio-dome.

Biological Model

Healthy wetland ecosystems are commonly seen as natural water filtration systems because they can remove sediments and nutrients from the surrounding soil or water. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous are taken from the water by bacteria and wetland plants that consume these nutrients as they grow. Physical processes like filtering and sedimentation can also remove nutrients and particles from the water. These biological and physical processes interact with many other factors, such as temperature and land structure, to affect a wetland’s overall function.

See Related Strategy

Biological Strategy

Interacting Organisms Filter Water

Wetland ecosystems

Wetland plants, bacteria, and the physical environment work together to remove particles and pollutants

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