Bioaugmentation Services

Bioaugmentation is the practice of enhancing the performance of indigenous bacterial populations of wastewater treatment systems through the addition of bacterial cultures with specific degradative abilities.

Bioaugmentation does not replace an existing bacterial population, but augments its ability to respond to certain situations or its ability to degrade components of the wastestream, resulting in improved treatment.

The benefits of wastewater bioaugmentation may be broadly categorized as follows:

Upset Recovery/ Plant Start-up

• Improved response to degradable organic shock loads
• Recovery from toxic shock loads
• Recovery from pH excursions
• Recovery from hydraulic washouts
• Recovery from process interruptions, such as electrical power loss
• New plant start-ups
• Scheduled or nonscheduled plant shut-downs
• Nitrification start-ups, recovery and stability
• Seasonal businesses (resorts, food processing)

Stability Related

• BOD/COD removal
• Statistically significant reductions in effluent variability
• Shock load resistance
• Degradation of pass-through compounds
• Targeted degradation of specific organics
• Improved stability in nitrification
• Control of oil & grease in collection systems, lagoons, scum pits and digesters
• Improved solids settability in secondary clarifiers
• Improved cold-weather operation

Bioaugmentation has been successful in improving wastewater treatment performance in fixed film, activated sludge, lagoons and industrial systems.