Foam Buster
FORGET FOAMING FILAMENTS. Foam Buster supplements key nutrients to stimulate floc forming bacteria to outcompete foaming filaments. These nutrients better balance the nutrient profile to encourage the uptake of simple carbons – short chain and volatile fatty acids. Foam Buster effectively eliminates the main food source of Nocardia, Microthrix parvicella, and other FOG filaments.
$350.00 – $370.00
| Nocardia or Microthrix Treatment | ||
|---|---|---|
| Flow Rate (Gallons per day) | Initial Dose (First 30 days) Once per day | Maintenance Dose (Once per day) |
| 100,000 GPD | 2 lb | 1 lb |
| 500,000 GPD | 4 lb | 2 lb |
| 1 MGD | 8 lb | 4 lb |
Product Details
Foaming filaments like Nocardia-like organisms and Microthrix parvicella use fatty acids to produce a buoyant cell wall. Foam Buster programs your wastewaters plant’s naturally occurring bacteria to consume these fatty acids. Foam Buster’s vitamins enable certain cellular functions to accomplish this task. Once the degradation of FOG and fatty acids improves, these troublesome filaments cannot survive on the dwindling food supply.
Foam Buster is effective in the oxidation ditches, activated sludge plants, SBRs, extended aeration wastewater treatment plants, and aerobic digesters. All these areas can be infiltrated by foam-causing, F.O.G.-hungry filaments like Microthrix parvicella, Nocardia, and Type 1863. Foam Buster also works well on the bulking filament Type 0092.
Most bacteria in wastewater plants are unmotivated and listless. Part of Foam Buster’s micronutrient blend is formulated to give the filament-degrading bacteria extra boosts of energy that allow them to degrade the filaments faster than they can reproduce thus getting rid of foam. As the graph shows, Foam 
Buster allows wastewater bacteria to degrade filaments while contributing a much lower amount of their own energy.
Foam Buster supports filament degradation in more ways than energy. Its formula also contains nutrients specifically needed by the bacteria to create certain foam-busting biocatalysts. A bacon grease molecule is different from a butter molecule is different from a filament molecule, and Foam Buster provides the right array of micronutrient ingredients to allow the bacteria to produce the specialized recipes for biocatalysts to attack these different molecules.
A lot of time when a wastewater plant gets foam they will use a chemical defoamer or an anti-foam to knock it down. Chemical defoamers work by covering up the problem for a period of time. In addition, chemical defoamers can cause sludge bulking issues, nitrifier toxicity, and are limited in that they do not control Nocardia or surfactant foams. Silica anti-foamers break down into siloxanes which corrode combustion engines. Neither type of product truly addresses the root cause of the problem.
Case Studies
Nocardia Foam
Challenge
A wastewater treatment plant on the south side of Chicago had an extensive foaming issue caused by the Nocardia filament. All the aeration basins were completely covered and the foam even found its way into the center walls of the clarifier.
1.1 MGD activated sludge municipal treatment plant incoming BOD: 140-160 ppm incoming ammonia: 15-20 ppm.
In addition to the foaming, the plant received exceptionally high spikes of ammonia during the weekends. These spikes would reach up to 60 ppm.
Solution
The operators began applying Foam Buster and Qwik-Zyme L to improve the cold weather degradation of surfactants, grease, and long-chain fatty acids, all which are nutrients for Nocardia.
Results
By the 30th day of the application, 5% of the foam cleared up to 75%. The operators continued a maintenance application to fully clear the plant. By fully degrading the grease and fatty acids, more ammonia and nitrogen was consumed, thus stabilizing the weekend ammonia spikes.
Another piece to the puzzle: This plant’s operator got a tip from a nearby neighbor about suspicious activity. After putting two and two together the operator notified the authorities. It turns out, in this nice community, a resident was producing methamphetamine. As soon as this meth lab was shut down, the wastewater plant stop receiving ammonia spikes. Aquafix was able to help out with the spikes, but the production of methamphetamine will send very high amounts of ammonia and other chemicals to your plant. It is unfortunate, but highly important to keep a watchful eye.
Oxidation Ditch
Challenge
A wastewater plant in Western Pennsylvania has a flow rate of 3 million gallons per day. During the winter months they routinely encounter problems with foam.
Solution
March 1, 2011 they began adding 20 lb. of Foam Buster per day.
Results
3 weeks later: The foam was gone and the temperature of the aeration basins was 75°F.