Q.Write brief essay on microbes in sewage treatments?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Sewage is treated by microbes in primary (physical removal of solids) and secondary (biological, aerobic breakdown that lowers BOD) treatment; the sludge is then digested anaerobically to give biogas, and the cleaned water is discharged.
Sewage is the municipal waste water containing large amounts of organic matter and many microbes, including pathogenic ones. It cannot be discharged directly into rivers or lakes. It is treated in Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) using heterotrophic microbes naturally present in the sewage. The treatment has two main stages:
- Primary treatment (physical):
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The sewage is passed through filters and grit chambers to remove floating debris and grit.
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It is then allowed to settle in settling tanks; the solids that settle form the primary sludge, and the liquid part (supernatant) forms the effluent.
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The effluent is taken for secondary treatment.
- Secondary treatment (biological):
- The primary effluent is passed into large aeration tanks where it is constantly agitated mechanically and air is pumped in.
- This allows vigorous growth of useful aerobic microbes into flocs (masses of bacteria associated with fungal filaments to form mesh-like structures).
- While growing, these microbes consume the major part of the organic matter in the effluent. This reduces the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of the effluent. BOD is the amount of oxygen that would be consumed if the organic matter in one litre of water were oxidised by bacteria; the lower the BOD, the cleaner the water.
- Once the BOD is reduced, the effluent is passed into a settling tank where the bacterial flocs settle as activated sludge.
- A small part of the activated sludge is pumped back as inoculum into the aeration tank. …
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