TECHNOLOGY / AEROBICSHIFT
AerobicShift: Turning Your Collection System Into the First Stage of Treatment
AerobicShift™ is our name for what happens when an anaerobic collection system is given usable oxygen. The sewer lines and lift stations stop being pipes that only move waste and become the first stage of biological treatment. Hydrogen sulfide is not formed on the way. Grease and solids begin breaking down in the pipe. The wastewater that reaches your plant or lagoon is already partly treated, so the plant you own does less work for the same or a better result, with no capital project.
Transform the environment. Expand where treatment happens.
- AerobicShift is Waste Water Innovations' term for giving an anaerobic collection system usable oxygen so it behaves like an aerobic one.
- In an AerobicShift program the sewer lines and lift stations become the first stage of biological treatment rather than pipes that only move waste.
- Dosing takes place as far upstream as water and power allow, usually at a lift station, so everything downstream of the drip is the treatment zone.
- With usable oxygen available, native bacteria do not take oxygen from sulfate, so hydrogen sulfide is not formed on the way to the plant.
- Fats, oils, grease and settled solids begin breaking down inside the collection system, so the plant receives a lighter organic load.
- An AerobicShift program requires no capital purchase; the dosing equipment is supplied and run by Waste Water Innovations as a monthly service.
What happens in the water
The bacteria that live in a sewer need oxygen. With none in the water they take it from sulfate and leave sulfide behind, which becomes hydrogen sulfide gas in the headspace. Press Start dosing and watch the same bacteria take oxygen from the accelerator instead: no sulfide is made, the grease cap breaks up, and the sludge layer thins as they digest it. Nothing is added but usable oxygen. Set the dose back to zero and the sulfide returns: the accelerator is used up as the bacteria take its oxygen, so nothing of it is left in the water, and that is why the program runs continuously.
How the program runs
A tote or tank of activated accelerator sits at the lift station and drips into the wet well around the clock. Every pump cycle carries dosed water down the force main, so the treatment zone is everything downstream of the drip. We watch the tote level remotely and refill it on a schedule, usually every four to eight weeks. Your crew picks up nothing new. Drag the drip slider to see how the refill interval moves.
The collection system is where the problems start
Most of what a plant fights was made on the way there. Wastewater sits in wet wells and force mains with no oxygen in it. The bacteria that live there strip oxygen from sulfate, and the sulfide left behind becomes hydrogen sulfide: the odor complaints, the acid that eats the crown of the pipe and the wet well walls, the pump housings and electrical boxes on the replacement list, and the confined-space danger your crew works around every day. Fats, oils and grease cap the flow and settle on the walls. Solids arrive at the plant whole. The plant then spends aeration energy and clarifier capacity on a load that could have been shrinking for miles.
Transform: an anaerobic pipe that behaves like an aerobic one
DRP Accelerator carries oxygen on the molecule, in a form the native bacteria can use wherever the water goes. Dosed at a lift station or a headworks channel, it travels with the flow. When the bacteria find that oxygen they take it first, so the sulfate pathway is never triggered and the sulfide that becomes hydrogen sulfide is not made. That is the transform: the environment inside the pipe shifts from anaerobic to aerobic behavior without a blower, a scrubber or a chemical scavenger. We add no bacteria and no enzymes. We change what the bacteria already there have to work with.
Expand: treatment begins upstream of the plant
Once the collection system is aerobic, the fast bacteria multiply and start doing the plant's job early. Grease lifts off the walls and is digested rather than hauled. Settled solids in the wet wells break down. The wastewater that arrives at the headworks carries less BOD, less grease and smaller solids, so the aeration basins, clarifiers and lagoon cells you already own have headroom they did not have before. That is the expand: biological treatment now happens in miles of pipe that were already built, already paid for and already receiving the flow. Lower aeration demand, longer equipment life and deferred capital are the goals we design for, and we measure your system against its own baseline to show what moved.
What it takes: a tank, a drip and a schedule
The program needs water, power and access at the dosing point, which is why a lift station is usually the answer. We set a tank on site, mix and activate the accelerator, and it drips into the wet well continuously. We monitor the tank remotely and replenish it on a schedule. Your crew picks up nothing new. There is no equipment to buy and nothing to bond for. It is a monthly service, priced after we review your flow and survey the site, and it runs for as long as you want the result.
For the board, in one paragraph
The standard answer to an aging plant is to build more of it. AerobicShift asks a different question: how do we reduce what arrives at the plant so what we already built can do more? The collection system is infrastructure the town already owns. Given usable oxygen it starts treating waste on the way to the plant, which means less gas at the lift stations, less grease at the headworks, less load on the basins, and a smaller bill for the things that lack of oxygen was quietly destroying. It costs an operating line, not a capital project, and it can be measured in the numbers the plant already reports.
What we will not claim
Outcomes are goals we measure, not promises we make. Every system is different in flow, temperature, grease load and how long the water sits, so we set a baseline before the first dose and read the trend against it. A system carrying years of deposits will look worse for a few weeks as it cleans itself: grease moves, suspended solids rise, odor can spike before it falls. Your gas monitors and confined-space procedures stay in place regardless of what the readings do. And permit compliance remains your facility's responsibility; we are one input to it, not a substitute for it.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Straight answers.
What does AerobicShift mean?+
It is our name for an anaerobic environment made to behave like an aerobic one. Applied to a collection system it means the sewer lines and lift stations become the first stage of biological treatment: hydrogen sulfide is not formed, and grease and solids start breaking down before the plant.
How is this different from an iron salt or a scrubber at the lift station?+
Those deal with hydrogen sulfide after it has formed. We keep it from forming by giving the bacteria oxygen so they never take it from sulfate. It is the difference between a solution and a band-aid, and it also means the grease and solids get digested instead of only the smell being covered.
Where does the dosing point go?+
As far up the flow as we can reach water and power. Usually that is a lift station or the headworks channel. From there the accelerator travels with the wastewater, so the treatment zone is everything downstream of the drip.
Does it replace the treatment plant or the aeration system?+
No. It reduces what the plant has to do. Aeration keeps running; it has less organic load to work on and can only put a small amount of oxygen in the water anyway. The plant keeps its permit and its process. The collection system just stops handing it a harder job than it needs to.
Can a small town do this without a capital project?+
Yes. That is the point. The dosing equipment is ours, the product is a monthly service, and the pipes doing the work are the ones the town already owns. Bring us a flow number and a sketch of the collection system and we will tell you where the dosing point would sit.
How do you know when a tote needs refilling?+
Each tote carries an ultrasonic level sensor from Meterra Systems that reads the level from the lid without touching the product, so the tote stays sealed. Six of our totes, spread across Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Colorado, report depth, volume and percentage to one dashboard with the drawdown trend, and we refill on that reading rather than on a calendar or a drive-by.
What do the two animations on this page show?+
The first is a cross-section of a sewer pipe. With no oxygen in the water the bacteria take it from sulfate and hydrogen sulfide bubbles up into the headspace; when the accelerator carries usable oxygen in, the same bacteria take that instead, no sulfide is made, and the sludge layer thins as they digest it. The second is the program itself: a tote or tank at the lift station dripping continuously into the wet well, the dosed flow moving down the force main toward the plant, the tote monitored remotely and refilled every four to eight weeks. Both are illustrations of the mechanism and the service, not measurements from a customer site.