CASE STUDY / MUNICIPAL

Lift Station BOD Cut From an Average of 370 to 53 mg/L in One Month

This case shows biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) falling from an average of 370 mg/L to an average of 53 mg/L, an 86 percent drop, over one month at a large lift station in South America. BOD measures how much oxygen bacteria need to break down organic material in wastewater, and a high BOD reading means more of that organic load is passing through untreated. Influent BOD at the station averaged around 330 mg/L on a typical day, with spikes to 380 mg/L. Over the month we dosed DRP Accelerator, an inorganic compound that carries usable oxygen to the bacteria already living in the wastewater, the incoming average of 370 mg/L came down to an average of 53 mg/L, and some days showed a drop as high as 88 percent. We add no bacteria and no enzymes. This page walks through what the record shows, how the accelerator affects the four main levers on BOD, and what the document behind these numbers does and does not tell us.

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is driven by four things at once. Supplying usable oxygen moves all four.

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) measures how much oxygen bacteria need to break down the organic material in wastewater, so a high BOD reading means a heavier untreated organic load.
At a large lift station in South America, influent BOD averaged around 330 mg/L on a typical day, with spikes to 380 mg/L, before a month of DRP Accelerator treatment.
Over that month, the incoming average of 370 mg/L came down to an average of 53 mg/L, an 86 percent reduction, with some days showing a drop as high as 88 percent.
BOD is driven by suspended solids, the sizing of the equipment handling the flow, the oxygen available for aeration, and how well solids coagulate and settle.
Only a small amount of oxygen dissolves into water as a gas through aeration, while DRP Accelerator carries oxygen to bacteria in a dissolved chemical form.
DRP Accelerator is an inorganic compound that carries usable oxygen to the bacteria already living in the wastewater, with no bacteria or enzymes added.

Published September 24, 2026

The system

This case comes from a large lift station in South America that handles more than a million gallons of wastewater a day. The document behind these numbers does not give the station’s exact flow, the number of pumps, or the size of the service area behind it, and it does not name the location, the operator, or the utility that runs it. Waste Water Innovations is confirming permission for naming the site before any more specific detail is published here. What the document does give is a month of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) readings taken before and during a DRP Accelerator dosing program.

The problem

Before dosing began, influent BOD at the station ran high. The document records a typical average of around 330 mg/L, with spikes up to 380 mg/L. High BOD is not a single problem with a single cause. The document walks through four things that drive it at once:

Suspended solids. Total suspended solids (TSS) and BOD move together. A wastewater stream carrying more solids also carries a higher organic load, so anything that leaves more solids in suspension leaves BOD higher too.
Equipment sizing. Many lift stations and treatment trains were built to handle less flow than they now carry. Undersized equipment struggles to keep up, and TSS and BOD both climb as a result.
Aeration and its ceiling. Aeration supplies oxygen to the bacteria that digest organic waste, and it is one of the most direct ways to bring BOD down, the approach compared on our aeration page. But water can only hold so much dissolved oxygen from a gas source: only a small amount goes into solution no matter how hard a system aerates, so blowers and diffusers run into a hard ceiling.
Coagulation and flocculation. Getting suspended particles to clump together and settle out, rather than pass through as scattered fine material, is its own separate process, and it is often chemical dependent: aluminum and iron based flocculants and polymers are commonly dosed to make particles settle.

What we did

We dosed DRP Accelerator, an inorganic compound that carries usable oxygen to the bacteria already living in the wastewater. We add no bacteria, no enzymes and no chemical additives. Because the accelerator is an inorganic compound rather than a gas, it carries oxygen into solution at concentrations a gas source cannot reach, delivering oxygen to the bacteria in a dissolved chemical form instead of relying on bubbles finding their way into the water. With that oxygen available, bacteria break down organic solids faster, and the document that describes the accelerator states that solids breakdown speeds up by a factor of twenty times or better where it is dosed. Faster breakdown means solids also settle out faster and more completely, which addresses the coagulation and flocculation step without relying as heavily on flocculant chemicals, and it means equipment already in place can handle more flow before it is overwhelmed. In other words, one dosing program works on all four of the levers behind BOD at the same time, because they are not four separate problems, they are four symptoms of bacteria not having enough oxygen to keep up with the organic load, the same shift from anaerobic to aerobic conditions described on our AerobicShift page. The accelerator is consumed as bacteria use its oxygen, so nothing of it is left downstream.

How it was measured

The document reports BOD as milligrams per liter (mg/L), tracked as an influent average before dosing and as a series of readings across a month of DRP Accelerator treatment. It does not name the lab or the person who ran the tests, and it does not give sample dates or the number of samples behind each average. The comparison is an influent average against a treated average from readings taken during the same month, not a side by side test against an untreated control. The document does not disclose the station’s exact flow rate.

Results

Measure	Value
Typical influent BOD before dosing	About 330 mg/L, with spikes to 380 mg/L
Incoming average during the treatment month	370 mg/L
Average BOD during the treatment month	53 mg/L
Average reduction over the month	86 percent
Best single day reduction	As much as 88 percent

The pattern across the month was a steady pull down from the 370 mg/L incoming average toward 53 mg/L, not a single one time reading. The document frames this drop as the direct result of giving bacteria more usable oxygen than aeration alone can supply, which lets them process more of the organic load before it leaves the station.

Limitations

This is one lift station over one month, and the document does not disclose its name, its city, or its exact flow. The figures compare an influent average against a treated average rather than paired same day influent and effluent samples, so day to day variation in incoming waste strength is folded into both numbers. No lab or technician is identified, and no specific sample dates are given, so this case study cannot say how many readings each average represents or exactly when the month ran. There is no untreated control run alongside the treatment period. For a future customer, a result like this is a goal we measure, not a promise.

Proof assets

The manufacturer’s document, “Lowering BOD Using Accelerator,” which records the influent and treated BOD averages and the month long reduction figures used on this page.
Waste Water Innovations is confirming permission for naming the site before any more specific location detail is published here.

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