Biological treatment

The natural solution: bacteria for effective recycling

Biological treatment processes are nature's own method of treating impurities contained within various waste materials. By establishing optimal treatment conditions at contaminated sites and facilities, we can nurture this natural process to treat waste materials that have various contaminants. 

To do this effectively, we carefully select the most appropriate bacteria to introduce into the treatment process and manage them to ensure optimum biodegradation occurs with pollutants or higher hazardous waste concentrations reduced or removed completely. Biological waste treatment processes can render waste non-hazardous and therefore present materials that can be further reused or repurposed.

Why and when

For effective biological treatment to take place, there has to be a clear understanding of the composition of the waste material to be treated. The operating conditions of the designed biological treatment process also must be carefully controlled in terms of moisture, material aeration and bacteria requirements, to ensure that the deployed process is successful.

Typically, the bacteria used are selected from the natural bacteria population of the country. This eliminates the need to import new bacterial species which may not perform under different conditions. The fundamental principle of the microbiological process is that the bacteria utilise the contaminant as an energy source and alter or destroy the impurity in their metabolism. Gases and other by-products of this form of waste treatment process can also be harnessed and put to good use.

Biological processes can be implemented in various settings, such as natural soil conditions for site remediation, water treatment to reduce nutrients, and in the form of industrial bioreactors.