A novel strategy for microbial conversion of dairy wastewater into biofertilizer

Green Gold from Dairy Industry: A Self-Sustained Eco-Friendly Effluent Treatment Plant

“…These pollutants are lost during conventional process of treatment due to biological action. A clear understanding of the pollutant to be treated [16], the microbial metabolic pathway that breaks down/converts the pollutant into plant acceptable form [17][18][19] and the kind of microbes known to harbor these pathways [17][18][19][20] can lead to development of processes which would convert the pollutant into a value added product [21]. The dairy wastewater with enhanced phosphate and nitrate along with a high carbon:nitrogen ratio [22] could be used directly for sustaining bacterial growth.…”

“…Six well characterized bacteria (Firmicutes and Proteobacteria) from environmental origin were combined in definite proportion [16] and put as a biofilm in a single unit (well designed) biotreatment plant [21] that replaces the storage tank, skimming tank, anaerobic digester, aerobic digester, settling tank, sludge tank and sludge drying bed of a conventional dairy effluent treatment plant, hence reducing the space requirement for setting up an effluent treatment plant by about 80%.…”

“…Some part of it after further treatment is reused in plant operations. In the developed technology [16,21], the organisms were placed as biofilm in the biotreatment plant. The biofilm formation ensures one-time bacterial inoculation with continuous operation for couple of years.…”

“…Unlike the conventional dairy effluent treatment system which requires about 60 kW (kilo watt) of energy for treatment of 600 m 3 of wastewater, the current system consumes only about 6 kW of energy for pumping the wastewater into the biotreatment plant. Since no aeration or temperature control is needed, hence the system utilizes only 10% of the energy of a conventional system resulting in a savings of approximately 90% on the carbon dioxide equivalent gas emission due to the effluent treatment plant operation [21].…”

“…However, only 12-30% of it is utilized while the rest pollutes the ground water New Advances in the Dairy Industry and the surface water bodies due to leaching [28]. Adequate scientific intervention leads to development of bacterial formulations which ensures entrapment of plant growth nutrients in the root zones by the microbes ensuring minimal leaching into the surrounding environment [29] and hence continuous access to nutrients during the growing season resulting in faster maturation of the crops [21,[28][29][30].…”