A client is considering a new process that will add about 900 mg/l t-amyl alcohol into their sewer effluent. I am trying to determine if it sufficiently biodegrades in a typical activated sludge sewage treatment plant (POTW) to allow this discharge without pretreatment. The dilution in the POTW would be around 4 times, yielding about 250 mg/l in the headworks. Thank you.
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for the excellent response. Although my client will not be too pleased to hear it is not easily degraded, they will now have a much better understanding of its environmental fate. As you pointed out, the branched structure makes the compound harder to biodegrade. Thank you again for spending the time to compose your detailed response!
I have not worked with t-amyl alcohol but I have experience with some other slowly degradable solvents. To me it would seem likely that the active biomass in a sewage treatment plant continuously exposed to 250 mg/L t-amyl alcohol would eventually develop a consortia of specific degraders as this is potentially a large carbon source. After enough specific degraders have developed the plant might be able to degrade the solvent. If the sludge retention time in the is too low to maintain these adapted bacteria the plant can be retrofitted with a biofilm treatment stage.
This might already have been described in literature or it could be investigated experimentally in reasonable simple experiments.
A good thought. TAA may experience higher degradation rates with a more acclimated sludge and longer sludge holding times. So far, I haven't been able to locate a copy of the second reference (above) to see how the sludge was acclimated prior to the test.
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