Applications

Biological treatment across wastewater applications

Our dosing methods cover wastewater lagoons. The applications below explain what biological treatment can address elsewhere in a treatment works, and what still needs mechanical removal or other attention. Lagoon dose rates do not apply to these other systems.

01The flagship duty

Wastewater lagoons.

Our sinking solids are designed for organic sludge that has settled beneath the water column. Other parts of a treatment works collect similar material, but need different application methods and dose rates.

Aerial view of a multi-cell aerated wastewater lagoon, its surface broken by aeration, with grass berms dividing the cells and a small control building alongside.

Municipal and industrial · all cell types

Wastewater lagoons

Settled influent solids and dead biomass form a sludge blanket, often deepest near the inlet. As it grows, it reduces the lagoon's working volume and detention time.

Spike and Puck deliver bacteria to the bottom sludge interface. Maintain disperses in the water column to address organic load. Polar serves that water-column application in cold conditions.

Only the volatile organic fraction responds. Sand, grit, silt, mineral precipitates and plastics remain at any dose. Check inadequate mixing or aeration before starting biological treatment.

One lagoon cell drawn as a single surface, looping between the two states its survey figures show. Colour and height are the same quantity throughout — the top of the sludge blanket against the survey’s own datum — so the colours you see are the source figures’ own. The later state stands lower across roughly four fifths of the bed, and nowhere near evenly: one end of the cell moves several times as much as the other, across a bed that a single sounding would have reported as one number. That is the argument for sizing against a whole bed rather than a spot reading, and it is why a rate written for one lagoon does not transfer to the next.
These are a third party’s survey figures and not a SediLogic result. Nothing in them records what was applied to this lagoon, or whether anything was, and a bed surface also moves through consolidation and settlement. The vertical scale is exaggerated, and no quantity is quoted from them.

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02The wider landscape

The same material, in different geometry.

Wet wells, grease traps and digesters collect different organic loads. Each needs dose instructions for that application; we do not size them from lagoon rates. Only the volatile organic fraction is treatable, and the limitations are listed below.

Interior of a wastewater lift station wet well with pump pipework.

Lift stations

Collection system · wet wells and pump chambers

Fats, oils and grease collect on wet-well walls and form a floating cap, while heavier organic solids settle in the base between pump cycles.

Bioaugmentation degrades fats, oils and grease as material, slowing how quickly that layer rebuilds between cleanouts — the same digestion the lagoon products rely on.

Rag, wipes and inorganic debris are unaffected and still have to be removed mechanically.

Open grease trap interceptor showing separated surface layer.

Grease traps and interceptors

Food service and processing · pre-treatment

Fats, oils and grease separate and harden into a surface cap, with solids settling below it, until the trap can no longer hold its rated capacity.

Bioaugmentation degrades FOG as material, slowing the rate at which the trap fills between scheduled pump-outs.

It reduces the organic load reaching the collection system; it does not remove the need for scheduled pumping or replace a maintenance contract.

Aeration basin with surface turbulence from diffused air.

Aeration tanks

Activated sludge · mixed liquor and clarification

The settling characteristics of mixed liquor affect how well the clarifier separates solids from treated water.

Enzymatic hydrolysis of organic solids can improve settling characteristics and lower biochemical oxygen demand where organic loading is the limiting factor.

Aeration capacity, hydraulic loading and return rates are mechanical constraints. A biological addition does not substitute for any of them.

Sludge holding tanks

Solids handling · thickening and storage

Thickened solids accumulate faster than the haulage schedule clears them, and disposal is billed by the ton.

Reducing volatile solids can reduce the mass to be transported and disposed of.

Only the volatile fraction reduces. The inert mass is unchanged and still has to leave the site.

Anaerobic digester vessels at a wastewater treatment facility.

Anaerobic digesters

Solids handling · stabilisation

Volatile solids loading governs both the destruction rate achieved and how much biosolids material remains at the end of it.

Supplemental organisms and enzymes act on volatile solids, and volatile solids destruction is the measure that matters.

Retention time, temperature and mixing govern digester performance. A biological addition works within those limits rather than around them.

Aboveground steel storage tanks at an industrial facility.

Aboveground storage tanks

Industrial · process and effluent storage

Organic solids settle on the tank floor and reduce its working volume.

Digesting the volatile fraction of that layer reduces the mass that eventually has to be pumped out and hauled away.

The inert fraction consolidates and remains regardless of dose, and tank cleaning is still a periodic requirement.

What you will not find described on this page

Competing pages for these same applications commonly promise algae control, odour elimination, hydrogen sulphide and sulfide corrosion control, or the suppression of filamentous organisms. Those describe acting on organisms rather than on material, and a product sold on any of them is a pesticide under FIFRA in the United States and falls under Regulation (EU) 528/2012 in Europe.

Where algae is the actual problem, the answer is physical rather than biological. A modular floating cover shades the water; with the sunlight cut off, the algae cannot photosynthesise and dies back, and the dead organic material it leaves behind is something bacteria then do digest. For covers we point operators to Advanced Water Treatment Technologies.

Everything above is therefore framed as what the organisms do to material: digest organic solids, reduce volatile solids, degrade fats, oils and grease, improve settling, lower biochemical oxygen demand, reduce accumulated depth. EPA guidance on determining whether a product is a pesticide lists claims that a product cleans, reduces or removes sludge among the examples the Agency does not consider pesticidal.

And in every application above, only the volatile organic fraction responds. Sand, grit, silt, mineral precipitates and plastics are not biodegradable and remain regardless of dose, product or format.

What wastewater applications does SediLogic supply products for?

Our dosing methods cover wastewater lagoons. Organic material also accumulates in lift stations, grease traps, tanks and digesters, but those applications need their own dose instructions. We do not apply lagoon rates to them.

Is the same product used across the whole lagoon?

No. Sinking solids deliver bacteria to settled bottom sludge. Soluble pouches disperse in the water column. The dose must come from the manufacturer's written method for the particular product and application.

What will bioaugmentation not fix in any of these applications?

Only the volatile organic fraction responds, in every application without exception. Sand, grit, silt, mineral precipitates and plastics are not biodegradable and remain regardless of dose, product or format. Rag and wipes in a wet well still need removing mechanically, a grease trap still needs its scheduled pump-out, and digester retention time, temperature and mixing remain the governing constraints. Biological treatment works inside those limits rather than around them.

Dose correctly. Reduce what is treatable.

If it is a lagoon, we can size it.

Enter your lagoon details to check whether biological treatment fits and which product to consider.

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