Use of floating balls for reducing bacterial aerosol emissions from aeration in wastewater treatment processes

The microorganism emissions from aeration in the wastewater treatment process may adversely affect air quality and human health. To control the liquid-to-air transport of microorganisms, commercially available balls were used and their control efficiencies were evaluated by a lab-scale aeration system. Escherichia coli as the test agent were aerosolized by the aeration system and size-fractionated E. coli-containing aerosol samples were collected by using an Andersen six-stage impactor with eosin methylene blue agar for subsequent culturing and enumeration of colonies. Aerosol samples were obtained without any control measure and with balls of four diameters (1.9, 2.9, 3.4 and 4.8 cm) in one, three and five layers covering the bubbling liquid surface. Experimental results showed that the control efficiencies of balls on bacterial aerosols varied from over 50% to nearly 100% under various control settings and substantially increased as the ball size decreased and the number of applied layers increased.