Microm 412 - Exam 3 Content

Preliminary treatment

The purpose of ___ ___ is to protect WWTP equipment, it does not decrease BOD much.

Physical treatment

The __ __ of water occurs in preliminary treatment where Bar rack screening, grit chamber, and is done

Bar rack screening

A pretreatment of the wastewater sewage that occurs in the first stage, removing rags,

parallel bars

A close up view of the bar rack of waste water treatment reveals ___ ___ to remove large solids.

minutes

In Grit chambes how long is the detention time?

Primary treatment

The 2nd stage of WWT

remove objectable solids (floating, greases etc)

What is the purpose of primary treatment?

skimming

How is primary treatment done?

2-3 hours

How long is the retention time in a primary treatment tank?

increase

Primary treatment is necessary to ___ efficiency of secondary treatment

quiescent conditions

In the primary stage, there are ___ ___ which is circular sedimentation basins to remove solids/scum

rotating rake

What in primary treatment get sludge that settles at the bottom of the tank?

remove soluble BOD, remove suspended solids

What is the purpose of secondary WWT?

biological treatment

The processes of secondary treatment can be described as what?

secondary

After ___ treatment, 90% of suspended solids and bod are removed

CO2, H2O

In secondary treatment, microorganisms are used to convert organic wastes to?

secondary treatment

___ ___ is like a natural self-purification process that occurs in streams on a slower scale

Organic material + O2 + nutrients = new cells + CO2 + H2O?

What is the reaction of secondary treatment?

Biofilm process

Trickling filter is a type of biological treatment where WW is continuously distributed over media. What type of process is this?

Activated sludge process

In this biological WWT process, sludge removes organics and other contaminents from water?

small microbial communities (biomass)

What is sludge in WWT?

Trickling filtration

Biofilms grow on media and degrade organics as sewage trickles down in what WWT process?

6-8 hours

In activated sludge filtering, hydraulic residence time is?

rod-shaped, filamentous

Composition of flocs is critical - it is a combination of what microbial species?

exopolysaccaride (EPS)

Bacteria + __ ___ + filaments create flocs for activated sludge

anaerobic

The inside of a floc is ___

bulking

The process by which the suspended solids in a secondary treatment plant becomes overabundant in filamentous organisms.

small

Without enough filaments, we get ___ flocs that are not as efficient and weak

Nocardia spp.

What genus is an important filamentous microbe for Activated sludge treatment?

Carbon, aerobe

Nocardia spp. is good because it is nutritionally versatile in its ___ source, and is a strict ___.

Nocardia spp.

What species can contribute to bulking?

Zoogloea spp.

An aerobic, motile bacteria that makes a lot of EPS holding flocs together and sticks to organic contaminents

detergents

After secondary treatment the secondary effluent has white bubbles from ___ that passed through treatment without being removed or degraded

ABS (alkyl benzene sulfonate)

This type of detergent can cause issues with the secondary effluent, it is marketed as biodegradable but it really isnt

Decontamination

The final crucial step of WWT is?

Chlorination/Dechlorination

A process of final decontamination that is often used, it is responsible for pathogen destruction

dechlorination

Because chlorine is toxic to aquatic life, ___ needs to happen after chlorination.S

Sludge treatment

If you raked out the solids at the bottom of a primary treatment batch, you would then thicken it and put it through anaerobic digestion, called

methane

Anaerobic digestion is a traditional biological method of sludge processing that uses ___

30 days

How long is the residence time of anaerobic digestion?

agriculture

Digested sludge from WWT can be used in ___ to improve soil organic C.

Injected into ground, discharged to surface water

Where does treated wastewater go?

groundwater, surface water

Where does our drinking water come from?

environmental buffer

What do we call putting water into soil and then taking it back out

indirect

___ potable reuse of treated waste water is becoming more common

pathogens

Wastewater treatment is important to remove ___ from water

enteric

Many wastewater pathogens are ____ pathogens

Protozoa

What type of pathogen in wastewater can be particularly resistant to treatment?

cyst

The ___ form of protozoa is hardy, and can protect it from adverse conditions, before transport to new host

Giardia

What genus was the 1st discovered waterborne pathogenic protozoa?

Cryptosporidium

What non-motile intestinal protozoa is a concern for wastewater treatment?

Cryptosporidium

What intestinal parasite is resistant to chlorination?

78%

Nitrogen composes ___ of our atmosphere

Nitrogen cycle

describes the routes that nitrogen atoms
take through the environment

nitrification, denitrification

What two process with N are crucial in WWT?

Nitrogen fixation

lightning or nitrogen-fixing bacteria
combine (fix) nitrogen with hydrogen
– Results in ammonia formation
– Which can be used by plants and microbes

dead zone

Seasonal input of farm and municipal N and P sources results in a __ __ in the Gulf of Mexico

Phytoplankton

What dies and sinks in the gulf of mexico resulting in oxygen consumption by bacteria and eventual death of marine animals caught in that zone

The gulf of mexico dead zone

An example of why removing N from WW is so important

Aerobic ammonia oxidizing bacteria

Nitrification

bacteria convert ammonia first into nitrite then
into nitrate (chemolithotrophy)

Denitrifying bacteria

converts nitrates in soil or water to
gaseous nitrogen (anaerobic respiration)
– Releasing it back into the atmosphere

Fish

What technique was used to determine the location of relevant metabolic groups of bacteria?

phylogenetic similarity

What did reseachers use to create probes to distinguish ammonia oxidizing bacteria and nitrite oxidizing bacteria?

Ammonia oxidizing bactera

this type of bacteria creates the substrate needed for nitrite oxidizing bacteria?

Nitrite oxidizing bacteria

What type of bacteria cluseter around ammonia oxidizing bacteria?

capillary needles

What tool with a membrane at the end allows scientists to measure different chemical species?

oligotrophic

What word means nutrient poor?

oligiotrophic

Before 1977, the ocean floor was thought to be ___ until they found living clams on the ocean floor

few

It was thought that the ocean floor was an oligotrophic environment with __ organisms, spread apart

The Alvin

What submersible was sent down to the ocean floor in 1977?

ecosystem

The alvin discovered a whole ____ on the ocean floor surrounding the vents

unknown taxa

The community surrounding ocean vents discovered by the Alvin was made up of many previously __ __

Chemosynthesis

The foundation of life at the ocean floor is based on what rather than photosynthesis?

1%

Chemosynthesis is ___ of oceans photosynthetic primary production

thermophillic chemolithoautotrophs

Microbes around deep ocean vents are ___ ___.

cold

___ ocean water seeps into the crust and gets heated up to 400C

Minerals

What leeches from the rock at the crust into hot water from the vent?

Fe, Cu, Zn, H2S

What metals are enriched into ocean floor vent fluid?

pressure

What causes hot water at ocean vents to spew out?

toxic

Vent fluid is __ to most life

Black smokers

The hottest type of vent, its fluid is Fe and sulfide rich

Fe and Sulfide

What reacts and precipitates to give the smoker its color in a black smoker?

Silica and CaSO4

What gives white smokers their color?

Barium, calcium, silicone

What is vent fluid from white smokers rich in?

Temperature and Chemical

What gradients dictate what lives where in a hydrothermal vent community?

Archaea

___ at a thermal vent have the highest temperature at which microbial growth has been observed (hyperthermophile)

hydrothermal geochemistry

What strongly influences the composition and metabolism of microbial communities along mixing gradients?

right spot

Microbes need to remain in the __ __ to survive in these communities

biofilms

a mechanism of hydrothermal vent microbes to remain in the correct place in the gradient

motility

A mechanism by which hydrothermal microbes can find their “sweet spot” in the gradients

acidic, anaerobic

Vent fluid has a ___ pH and is ____

NO3 and O2

What is ocean water rich in?

Neutrally buoyant plume

The smoke coming off a chimney that rises, starts to cool, and merges with the surrounding ocean water, with microbial communities forming in cooler pockets

O2

___ that diffuses into the neutrally boyant plume allows for chemolithoautotrophy when combined with Mn and Fe.

metabolism

The chimney has its own thermochemical gradient that dictates where different microbes are found based on their ____

subsurface biosphere

the ____ ___ is where hydrothermal vent fluid and ocean water mix on the ocean floor allowing the growth of microbial communities in gradients

methanogens

What type of important metabolizer is found at the subsurface biosphere

gradient

Besides a temperature gradient, we have a _____ of important chemicals from the vent fluid and the sea water

Psychrophiles

This type of organism thrives in the spaces where the temperature is cooler and the vent fluid is in more contact with the ocean water