Bioaugmentation of anaerobic digestion with a biocatalytic addition: The bacterial nature of the biocatalytic addition

Abstract

Biocatalytic additions and bioenzymes are frequently marketed to be able to improve the performance of wastewater process units. There have, however, been conflicting reports on the usefulness of such biocatalytic additions. The bacterial nature of a particular commercial biocatalyst is studied here. Pure culture techniques were used to isolate the bacteria growing on selected culture media, and results were compared with the bacteria recovered in a laboratory anaerobic digester. The limited range of bacteria identified comprised either obligate aerobes or facultative anaerobes, and no methanogens were detected. Considering that there was no significant difference in the bacterial flora in reactors with, as well as without the biocatalytic addition, there was therefore insufficient evidence to support the use of the biocatalyst in the anaerobic digestion process.