Aeration basins
Accumulated solids standing more than a metre deep in the aeration tank of a distillery effluent plant.
of accumulated tank solids digested in fourteen days
01The plant
The aeration tank of a distillery effluent works in Mexico treating raw vinaza — the high-strength wastewater left behind when agave is fermented and distilled.
02Before
The organic load had overwhelmed the tank. Accumulated solids stood more than a metre deep across the bottom, a thick scum layer had closed the surface, and with oxygen transfer choked the treatment slowed further still. As capacity fell the aerators worked harder and the electricity bill climbed with them. The operator wanted the tank back without draining it, dredging it or buying anything.
03Treatment
A powder metered into the aeration tank inlet once a day, so the dosing rode the flow that was already there. No capital work, no new tanks and no change to the aeration hardware.
Every result in this library was measured at an operating plant treating with one of the formulations SediLogic supplies, over the window stated above. It is a field result published as reported, not a controlled trial we ran.
04Sizing
Once daily at the tank inlet, carried in on the existing flow. Frequency is the only basis the record gives; no quantity is published and none is inferred here.
05Method
The tank's water level, the state of the surface and oxygen transfer, observed across fourteen days.
06Outcome
Treatment capacity recovered, and the aerators drew less power as the load on them eased.
At the start
More than a metre of accumulated solids across the tank bottom, a thick scum layer over the surface, oxygen transfer restricted.
At the close
Scum almost entirely gone by day fourteen, oxygen transfer restored, and the tank level down by more than a metre.
07Limits
The metre is inferred, not measured. What was observed is the tank's water level falling by more than a metre, read as that much accumulated material consumed in place — there was no depth survey, no solids analysis and no volatile fraction at either end. A level drop in an operating tank has other possible contributions and the record excludes none of them. Nothing was left untreated, and fourteen days is a short window to attribute a metre to.
Only the volatile organic fraction of a sludge responds to any of this. Grit, sand, silt, mineral precipitates and plastics remain at any dose, here and everywhere else.
—What we would supply
Liquid is intended for systems with metered or poured dosing and organic load in the water column. Sinking solids are designed for settled bottom sludge.
The planner does not calculate quantities for an activated-sludge basin. Send the flow and loading for review. A lagoon dose table cannot be transferred to this application.
—Read next
Aeration basins
IndustrialOne month from a January application
lower effluent BOD within a month of dosing
A million gallons a day of mill effluent, and a BOD figure that climbed every winter as the water cooled and biological activity fell away with it.
Aeration basins
IndustrialImprovement inside 4 months
reported annual saving once settling recovered
Nine months of filamentous growth had taken the settled-volume test above 980 ml/L, so the clarifier could not hold solids and the plant was paying to haul them away.
Aeration basins
Municipal1 year
reduction in secondary sludge production
A food-processing load arriving at a municipal works, bringing enough grease with it to drive filamentous growth and cost the plant its settling.
Your lagoon next
This result came from a different plant. Your sludge composition and operating conditions need their own assessment. Send us your lagoon details for a dosing review; do not use the quantity on this page as your application rate.
