https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-1l85vDO0
Team 1: Praise Benson, Roy Ward, and Ornella Helene Hare
Project Title: Assessment of Bio-Microbics Aerobic Treatment Unit in Raw Sewage Tanks and Bioreactor Treatment Unit
The focus of our research for this project is on tank 1 (Raw sewage) and tank 3 (Bio Microbics membrane bioreactor aerobic treatment unit). This research was done to see how effective the Bio-Microbics tank was in removing contaminants such as fecal matter, metals and suspended solids which comes from Tank 1. Tank 1 is the raw sewage septic tank which is also known as BLACKWATER. This Tank has all kinds of fecal matter, and a little mixer that is located down the tank that mixes all particles coming into tank 1. The Bio-Microbics Tank has a membrane that allows only particles that are less than 2 microns to pass through it. It is also an aerated tank which means that air flushed into the system. Due to the presence of oxygen, microbes are able to break down organic molecules thus improving the quality of the water. From the data that was collected, it was concluded that the Bio-Microbics system at the OSSF plant was an efficient secondary treatment system; coliforms, TSS and BOD was reduced by 99.999%.
Team 2: G. Quintero, D. Sinquefield, and M. Vara.
Project Title: Assessment of the Effectiveness of an Aerobic Clearstream Unit in Treating Raw Wastewater
Aerobic Treatment Units are an important component to society, in regards to returning water to hydrologic cycle. It is imperative that there be an effective way to treat water in isolated areas, since sewer lines become costly over long distances. Multiple laboratories and a variety of tests were used to assess the same water quality parameters and there were some discrepancies between the results. The highest quality data was determined to be from AquaTech, due to its laboratory accreditation. The variations could be due to differences in testing times, procedures, or personnel conducting the tests. Variations could also be due to chloride picking up free chlorine, or turbidity interfering with nitrate measurements. The organic matter greatly decreases from tank 1 to tank 2. This is due to several factors: in tank 1 biological organisms are feeding on dissolved oxygen and breaking down the organic matter. In tank 2, it is shown that the nitrate decreases, depleting the organism’s food source; therefore, the biological oxygen demand also decreases. It can be determined that the aerobic treatment unit at the Texas A&M RELLIS Campus OSSF Training Center was effective in treating water to acceptable standards for distribution into the soil.
Team 3: Leah Kocian, Jaida Bannister, and Justin Macmanus
Project Title: Assessment of Soil Treatment in the Drip Field
The significance of the project was to determine how well secondary septic tank systems worked in cleaning the wastewater before it traveled to the drip field. Looking deeper into the systems, you can distinguish how well each type of secondary tank worked with regards to how clean the wastewater was when it hit tank four. Measuring levels of chlorine in tank four for example could exemplify how beneficial a clear stream septic tank system would be to cleaning wastewater prior to soil treatment in the drip field. As one can assume, turning the septic tank system off did not provide the opportunity for maximum cleaning before the wastewater traveled to the drip field. Testing the drip field during the hottest months possible in Texas may have not been the best option when sampling the drip fields as often times there was not enough water samples to collect due to dry soils. Understanding that Texas is more usually hot than cold, we could see how testing during the summer would be ideal for more accurate samples, but testing during the hottest month and using only that data for analysis, in our opinion was not the most ideal time for gathering accurate data regarding the drip field for climates such as the ones we experience in Texas.
Team 4: Guadalupe Aerreola, Mikela Pruor, Nykeen Thomas
Project Title: ClearStream Systems: An Analysis of Tanks 1 and 2 Under an Anaerobic Condition
This researched analyzed water samples from the On-Site Sewage Facility at the the RELLIS campus at Texas A&M University. The data analyzed the water sample qualities from Tanks 1 and 2 from the Clearstream systems. Based on the data from each of the labs, the Clearstream system did as expected under the conditions of the blowers being off. The system did not perform as well indicated by the amount of BOD, TSS, and coliforms present in the water. Some of the data was conclusive such as chlorine not following an expected pattern. This study should help indicate what would happen if the blowers were turned off in the future.
Team 5: Aerial Lowe, Christopher Rogers, Victoria Baltazar
Project Title: Bio-Microbics Aerobic Treatment Unit Failure
This project analyzes what would happen if the Bio-Microbics treatment unit is not working properly. For the MBR at the RELLIS campus, Bio Microbics Inc. claims the BioBarrier filters BOD to less than 5 mg/L, TSS less than 2 mg/L, turbidity less than 0.2 NTU, and a fecal coliform count less than 200 CFU/100 mL without disinfection (BioBarrier, 2017). These changes were observed in these and other areas that affect drinking water standards such as nitrogen (nitrates and nitrites), Dissolved Oxygen, and TDS to name a few. Based on the results, there was a significant increase of contaminants in wastewater when the Bio Microbics MBR aerator was turned off. The data based on the samples agrees with the statement given by Bio Microbics on the ability of their system to perform while the system was operating as intended. However, once the system aerator stopped functioning in later sample rounds, the level of contaminants increased. In conclusion, the lack of oxygen supply greatly affected the level of contaminants in the effluent produced in the Bio Microbics tank.