Biodegradability Sewage treatment plants

The effluent from the isolation wash belt is the principal wastewater stream from the polymerization process. It contains highly diluted acetic acid and a surfactant that is not biodegradable. The wastewater streams are sent to sewage treatment plants where BOD is reduced to acceptable levels. Alternative biodegradable surfactants have been reported in the Hterature (173). 

The wastewater of the production plant (about 0.25 m3/100 kg paraffin sulfonate) shows a COD of 2100 mg/L. Because of the good biodegradability of the dissolved matter, it can be purified in a sewage treatment plant without difficulty [8]. 

The primary biodegradation grades of secondary alkanesulfonates measured by different tests are distinctly above 90%. In the OECD Confirmatory Test (sewage treatment plant simulation test), the biodegradability is 99% (decrease in MBAS, the methylene blue active substance). 

In a continuous model river test system it can be shown that after passage through a sewage treatment plant ester sulfonates have no significant influence on the qualitative and quantitative composition of the biocenosis of a receiving water [113]. All the investigations into the environmental fate of a-sulfo fatty acid esters demonstrate that aquatic toxicity is alleviated by their fast ultimate biodegradability, which allows them to be classified as environmentally compatible. 

Static die-away tests were performed by Potter et al. with an A9PEO7 24 mixture in water from a vertically well-mixed estuary in Florida [36]. Lag times of 0—12 days were observed, and after 4—24 days, primary degradation was complete. These rates are similar to those reported by Kvestak and Ahel [6]. It is likely that the microorganisms in these experiments were pre-acclimated to biodegrade nonionic surfactants, as a municipal sewage treatment plant discharge is present a few kilometres upstream. 

Shake flasks were inoculated with mixed liquor suspended solids from activated sludge units in a Houston area domestic waste sewage treatment plant. Initial surfactant concentrations were 20 mg/ . CO2 formed from biodegradation was trapped in aqueous Ba(OH)2. The amount of CO2 formed was determined by back-titrating residual Ba(OH)2 with HCl at the end of each test period. Glucose was included as a positive biodegradation standard. 

Bock, K.J., and R. Wickbold. 1966. Effects of change to easily biodegradable detergents in a large scale sewage treatment plant and its effluents. Vom Wasser 33, 242-253. 

Steber, J., and P. Wierich. 1985. Metabolites and biodegradation pathways of fatty alcohol ethoxylates in microbial biocenoses of sewage treatment plant. Appl. Env. Microbiol. 49, 530-537. 

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