Description
The Science Behind Surfactants
Surfactants can be known as NPE’s (Nonyphenol Ethoxylates) to chemists. Surfactants are soaps and cleaners. Almost all surfactants are made from grease in some way. WWTP’s are dumped with these from factories and so on. We selected the highly specialized pseudomonas bacteria cultures in this blend for their ability to degrade surfactants and emulsions.
VitaStim Surfactants is a 5x blend and an excellent product for industrial or municipal wastewater plants that receive heavy amounts of surfactants or emulsions that can affect settling and foam.
Surfactants cause foaming, cloudy effluent, and shut down nitrification.
Surfactants can be slow and difficult to break down. VitaStim Surfactants speeds up the process of degrading surfactant molecules. This product can be added as soon as foam and turbidity are noticed, and the sooner you start treatment, the faster the results.
Product Pairings
Pair with CounterQuat to rebuild after a toxic event.
Pair with VitaStim Rebuild to accelerate plant startup and rebuild.
Pair with Foam Buster for further reduction of foam causing filaments.
Case Studies
Manufacturer of Luxury Soaps Controls Fatty Acid Foaming
Challenge
High Lauric and Stearic Fatty Acids
Solution
Qwik-Zyme L and VitaStim Surfactants
Results
An organic chemical manufacturer in North Carolina contacted us about foam being generated in their treatment system. They use a series of two lagoons, with high aeration in the first lagoon, to pretreat their waste stream before sending it to the municipal wastewater treatment plant. The waste stream has high concentrations of lauric and stearic acids which contribute to 600 ppm influent BOD and 200 ppm COD. The system was not achieving complete breakdown of these fatty acids as the waste stream moved quickly through the system. The operator began using VitaStim Surfactants to add new bacteria cultures which break down fatty acids. This improvement was enough to make the customer happy, but we thought that adding our Qwik-Zyme L, a liquid biocatalyst product, would help break down the fatty acids even more quickly. The biocatalyst accelerated the process, a huge benefit in this waste stream with a short detention time. The combination of a biocatalyst and bacteria brought the system’s effluent waste stream down to 8.1 ppm BOD and 0.4 ppm COD.
Product Resources
PDF Downloads: Product info, SDS, and white papers
VitaStim Surfactants Product Sheet
VitaStim Surfactants SDS
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