BP
Treating waste water
What happened?
The PTA’s solution to the problem of minimising biomass sludge was found in a tiny organism that has existed on earth for billions of years. The microbe, Archaea, cleans the water so efficiently that it is almost good enough to drink!
Biological treatment technologies are the most effective means of destroying organic compounds in wastewater from petrochemical plants. You probably have not heard of them, but the Archaea (brand name Arkea) are among the most fascinating organisms on earth.
Archaea can survive in the most inhospitable conditions. Water polluted with organic waste is no problem for them to digest and break down into components.
The research and development challenges were therefore to:
- Effectively culture Archaea for use on an industrial scale
- Manage the introduction of Archaea into an industrial process in a cost-effective way
- Justify the use of Archaea rather than other processes available around the world for minimising sludge.
Adding Archaea to waste water is a simple and relatively cheap process. A ‘sack’ of the microbes is put into a container that looks like a plastic barrel which releases them into the water.
At the Cooper River plant, there has been a reduction in overall costs for sludge treatment and disposal by $250,000 per year.