Remov­ing odor from wastewa­ter using bacteria

The com­pany Eco­Verde, by Mex­ic­an Hum­berto Uribe Luis Lobo, designed a new fil­tra­tion sys­tem that removes odor and oth­er pol­lut­ants from wastewa­ter through a bio­lo­gic­al pro­cess based on bac­teria that feed on hydro­gen sulf­ide, a sub­stance char­ac­ter­ized for a rot­ten egg-like stench. This tech­no­logy is more envir­on­ment­ally friendly than the ones already on the mar­ket, because it uses no chem­ic­als or con­sum­ables such as activ­ated car­bon. Uribe Lobo cre­ated the com­pany Eco­Verde in the USA, which has become one of the expert com­pan­ies in odor remov­al.

How it works

Air is extrac­ted from sewage or indus­tri­al wastewa­ter and sent to the sys­tem called bio­scrub­ber EG, there a mech­an­ism evap­or­ates it and dir­ects con­tam­in­ants (ammo­nia, mer­captan and hydro­gen sulf­ide) that cause odor to the fil­ter were bac­teria elim­in­ates them. ​“The bio­scrub­ber EG is based on a non-degrad­able fil­ter where we place and adhere vari­ous types of bac­teria which are selec­ted depend­ing on the applic­a­tion and con­tam­in­ants. The remov­al of pol­lut­ants occurs through a nat­ur­al pro­cess of oxid­a­tion. Odors are con­sumed by microor­gan­isms, so that the more pol­luted the air, there will be more food for the bac­teria without incur­ring any cost,” said Uribe Lobo. Some auto­troph­ic bac­teria are used by Eco­Verde (includ­ing Theo­ba­cilus) to remove hydro­gen sulf­ide and meth­ane; het­ero­troph­ic bac­teria remove VOCs (volat­ile organ­ic com­pounds). As a part of the bio­scrub­ber install­a­tion, the fil­ter is inocu­lated with a mix­ture of bac­teria dur­ing the first three days. When con­tam­in­ated air passes through the extract­or, it reaches the fil­ter where the odor remov­ing bac­teria are. Eco­Verde ori­gin­ally star­ted in the USA, where it man­aged to pos­i­tion itself as a pro­vider of odor remov­al ser­vices in sewage accord­ing to the reg­u­la­tions of that coun­try. Luis Uribe said that the pur­pose of tak­ing this tech­no­logy to Mex­ico was to bene­fit the com­munit­ies sur­round­ing sewage plants and meet the Offi­cial Mex­ic­an Stand­ard ​“NOM-010-STPS-1999” which states that health and safety con­di­tions in work­places where chem­ic­al pol­lut­ants are pro­cessed. For more inform­a­tion vis­it: www​.eco​ver​de​tech​no​lo​gies​.com. Source: Invest­iga­ción y Desar­rollo, Mexico