Sponsor Area

Environmental Issues

Question
CBSEENBI12002087

Secondary treatment of the sewage is also called Biological treatment. Justify this statement and explain the process

Solution

Secondary treatment or Biological treatment :
* Primary effluent is passed into large aeration tanks with constant mechanical agitation and air supply. * Useful aerobic microbes grow rapidly and form flocs.
* Flocs are masses of bacteria and consumes organic matter and thus reduce the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).
* When BOD of sewage has reduced, the effluent is passed into Settling tank.
* Here, the bacterial flocs settle and sediment is called activated sludge.
* A small part of the sludge is used as an inoculum in the aeration tank and the remaining part is passed into large tanks called anaerobic sludge digesters.
* In the digesters, heterotrophic microbes anaerobically digest bacteria and fungi in sludge producing mixture of gases such as methane, H2S, CO2 which forms the biogas.