3D printed biofilm supports for treatment systems

 

 

Additional work which is currently funded by the MassTech Transfer Center focuses on 3D Printed Biomimetic Biofilm Supports for Treatment Systems. Wastewater treatment plants are turning to low-cost options to retrofit their existing infrastructure by ‘intensifying’ treatment, or increasing the treatment capacity in the same physical system. A common strategy is to add plastic carriers or structures to large treatment tanks to support more contaminant-consuming bacteria. When support structures are added bacteria move from free floating modes of growth to dense consortiums of attached growth
called biofilms. Adoption of these styles of treatment systems are growing in frequency. Moving bed biofilm reactors, integrated fixed film activated sludge process, membrane biofilm reactors are examples of these processes. With their ability to treat concentrated waste streams in a small footprint, biofilm-based treatment processes are also increasingly employed for used in many industrial applications, particularly, dairy, breweries and beverage industries, in addition to municipal wastewater treatment. Biofilm support structures in treatment systems have often been designed to maximize surface area but few have consciously considered the mechanical requirements of the biofilm itself. Currently, biofilm management is an imperfect science and largely the product of operational optimization in large-scale processes. As a result, many biofilm treatment processes experience significant biofilm detachment events, called sloughing, and as a result, lose treatment
capacity. For a municipal wastewater treatment system, loss of treatment could result in risks to environmental and public health. For industrial systems, loss of treatment could mean shutting down a production line at great expense to a company.