VitaStim Surfactants – Surfactant Digesting Bacteria

Manufacturer of Luxury Soaps Controls Fatty Acid Foaming

Challenge

High Lauric and Stearic Fatty Acids

Solution

Qwik-Zyme L, 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 influent BOD 600 ppm, and COD 200 ppm. 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 of fatty acids. This improvement was enough to make the customer happy, but we thought that adding our Qwik-Zyme L, 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 biocatalyst and bacteria brought the systems effluent waste stream down to BOD 8.1 ppm, and COD .4 ppm.