Liquid purification or separation – Processes – Treatment by living organism
Patent
1993-06-18
1995-03-14
Cintins, Ivars
Liquid purification or separation
Processes
Treatment by living organism
210150, C02F 304
Patent
active
053974743
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to treatment of wastes and in particular treatment of biological wastes such as effluent in the form of waste liquors from piggeries, breweries, fermentation tanks, distilleries and the like. It will however be appreciated that the invention can be applied to any wastes capable of being metabolised by filamentous micro-organisms such as fungi and bacteria.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Safe, convenient and economic disposal of waste products, particularly biological wastes, remains a problem for society. As municipal authorities become increasingly aware of their responsibilities in this area, legislation usually requires commercial enterprises to ensure that safe disposal occurs of wastes resultant from their activities. As an incentive for a commercial enterprise to undertake the necessary treatment prior to disposal of its waste products, financial penalties are levied by municipal authorities unless the treated waste meets certain requirements before discharge into the public sewer system.
Some waste materials of interest include piggery (and other animal) wastes, brewery wastes, cattle feedlots (beef and dairy), domestic activities inclusive of sewage, fruit Juicing, canning, abattoirs, dairy and cheese factories, alcohol distilleries, soft drink factories and food processing.
The basic thesis underlying the treatment of biological wastes is that the biochemistry and microbiology of each waste, and then that of the proposed treatment process, must be understood in order for the treatment to work in the desired manner. It is precisely because an understanding of these fundamentals has been lacking, that a comprehensive treatment of wastes inclusive of biological waste has yet to be proposed.
Pig wastes for example consist of a solid portion made up of faecal matter and spilt feed, and a liquid portion consisting of urine, water lost from the drinking fountains, wash-water used in cleaning the piggery and a small quantity of material infused from the solid portion. The solid material contains two fractions one of which is easily digested and represents 36-40% of the total solids (ie Hobson and Robertson (1977) in Applied Science Publishers Ltd London entitled "Waste Treatment in Agriculture") while the other fraction is of low digestibility. The digestible fraction contains proteins, fats and carbohydrates, organic acids and breakdown products of nitrogenous compounds while the relatively indigestible fraction is largely lignocellulose. The two fractions in the solid portion are closely interlinked with each other. The liquid portion is rich in salts derived from the urine and contains nitrogen, both as urea and as ammonia, and elements in high concentration such as calcium and phosphorus as well as potassium, sodium, iron, copper, zinc, sulphur and chloride. Both the solid and the liquid portions harbour a rich flora of micro-organisms in which it would be unusual not to find some pathogens. The solid faecal portion is rich in iron, copper and zinc which are provided as additional supplements to the pigs for nutritional reasons. The entire waste has a unique and, to most people, unpleasant odour.
If it assumed that the mean body-weight of a pig in a piggery producing bacon is 47 kg, then such a pig voids daily 0.263 kg of faeces and urine as drymatter and around 2.5 liters of water in urine. If it is further assumed that a herd of 1000 sows would contain a mean population of 9050 pigs at any one time, then the daily output of faeces and urine (drymatter) would be 2.38 tonnes and the output of urine as water would be 22,626 liters. These data are used merely to outline in general the size of the daily waste output of a piggery. When combined with wash-water the output of waste is formidable, and a piggery of the size just postulated could produce 200,000 liters of liquid waste per day.
It therefore will be appreciated that the opportunities which would arise from a treatment process which would deal adequately with piggery and other biological wastes are considerable and could be
REFERENCES:
patent: 3231490 (1966-01-01), Fry
patent: 4666593 (1987-05-01), Bosne
M. C. M. Van Loosdrecht et al, "Biofilm bioreactors for wastewater treatment", Trends in Biotechnology, 1: 117-121 (1993).
Cintins Ivars
The University of Queensland
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