Moleaer’s Nanobubble Technology is Helping Municipal and Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plants Increase Treatment Efficiency and Capacity with Lower Energy and Chemical Footprint
Moleaer’s Nanobubble Technology Reduces Treatment Costs While Solving Common Problems in Municipal and Industrial Wastewater Treatment
Fats, oils and grease (FOG) and amphiphilic compounds, such as quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), surfactants and soaps, are commonly found in wastewater and can interfere with solids separation, biological processes and oxygen transfer. This significantly reduces the efficiency of wastewater treatment and increases the likelihood of common problems like excessive scum and high energy and chemical demand. Moleaer’s nanobubbles selectively attract and inactivate these inhibitory compounds using a clean, in-situ chemical process to improve treatment efficiency and reduce scum build-up.
Treatment instability is a challenge for many wastewater treatment plants, leading to problems with process upsets, toxicity events, and inconsistent performance. By reducing inhibitory compounds like surfactants and fats, oils and grease and improving treatment efficiency, nanobubble technology enables reliability in the treatment process to give treatment operators peace of mind and management the ability to plan for long-term success.
More and more wastewater professionals are seeing reduced treatment capacity and capacity constraints in well-designed treatment facilities in recent years. This is attributed to the increased concentration and use of surfactant-based products and fats, oils, and grease, which lead to the formation of stable emulsions that disrupt wastewater treatment processes. These emulsions are difficult to remove using conventional treatment processes which leads to inefficiency, operational and biological chemical demand (BOD) challenges, process upsets, and increased operating costs. Moleaer's nanobubble technology offers a robust solution to selectively target and break down surfactants to increase treatment capacity and improve process efficiency.
Odor is common in wastewater treatment plants; however, frequent complaints and unhappy neighbors make foul odors an increasing problem. These odors are typically caused by noxious gases like Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), which can pose health concerns. When common solutions like deodorizing chemicals and bioaugmentation are expensive or aren’t working, nanobubble technology has emerged as a sustainable solution. In fact, our customers have not only seen significant odor reductions but have also improved their process performance. Nanobubble technology enables lower contaminant levels in effluent water and process intensification, the optimization of treatment processes for maximum efficiency and resource consumption and reduced environmental impact.
Lagoons or facultative ponds are commonly used wastewater treatment processes in both municipal and industrial wastewater plants for their simplicity; however, they are not without challenges. The most prevalent issue and biggest complaint plants receive is from foul odor that can emanate from lagoons during the treatment process. The release of odorous gases poses a nuisance to nearby communities and has environmental and health implications. Other issues include treatment capacity constraints and high costs for dredging the lagoons. Moleaer’s nanobubble technology mitigated odor issues for both municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants. For instance, nanobubbles reduced the surfactant concentrations in a poultry processing lagoon, improving its health, treatment capacity, and water quality parameters, while reducing foul odors. Moleaer’s technology was also used at a municipal lagoon to eliminate neighborhood odor complaints. Additionally, the customer saw increased treatment capacity and biogas production. They were even able to implement water reuse technologies from improved effluent quality with lower biological oxygen demand (BOD), ammonia and more.
Did you know surfactants could be the cause of your treatment issues? Regardless of industrial or municipal application, the common observed wastewater challenges are often caused by inhibitory compounds like surfactants and fats, oils and grease. Dive into the world of inhibitory compounds in our white paper.
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| Problems | Solids Separation | Activated Sludge | Fixed-Film | Lagoons | Anaerobic Digestion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upsets | |||||
| Capacity Constraints | |||||
| COD/BOD/Nitrogen Removal | |||||
| FOG/Scum | |||||
| Toxicity | |||||
| Energy Costs | |||||
| Odor Issues | |||||
| Chemical Costs | |||||
| Sludge Accumulation | |||||
| Digester Foaming | |||||
| Biogas Production & Quality |
Moleaer’s nanobubble technology enables wastewater treatment facilities to treat more wastewater and/or treat it faster by improving biodegradability. In addition to some chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, nanobubbles convert slowly biodegradable biological oxygen demand (BOD) to readily biodegradable BOD. This facilitates more efficient BOD consumption by bacteria in the wastewater. Our customers see better effluent quality, reduced treatment costs and higher treatment capacity.
Moleaer’s customers in water resource recovery facilities and industrial food and beverage wastewater treatment facilities are seeing lower treatment costs, better treatment efficiency and increased capacity.
Learn from Andrea White, P.E., Moleaer's Global Director of Water Process Engineering and John Crisman, Moleaer's Senior Water Process Engineer, how nanobubble pretreatment addresses common wastewater treatment challenges using only air and water.
"We’re planning to increase production by over 20 million pounds of cheese and whey products over the next 3 years since installing Moleaer equipment in our wastewater process. That includes avoiding $10 million in CAPEX improvements we would have needed to make. We recommend Moleaer’s system for other cheese manufacturers looking to increase their wastewater treatment capacity and production at the same time."
"Moleaer’s sales, service and engineering teams were all great to work with, helping us solve our long-standing odor problem. Moleaer is a great company delivering great science and even better results."
"Moleaer’s system deployed quickly and was plug-and-play, treating toxic stormwater and easing bioreactor loads. Operators observed that minimal oversight proved the system works. Given Moleaer's benefits, the plant would have rented larger equipment long-term, but for budget constraints. Still, though undersized, Moleaer’s equipment optimized operations and eased aeration, while regular check-ins addressed issues. Lasting two months, this deployment targeted odors and efficiency, while construction continued."
Supervisor at San Luis Obispo Water Resource Recovery Facility (SLO WRRF)
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