Author(s)

NATHALIE CAMPOS, CARLOS MATOVELLE, DIEGO HERAS

Abstract

The degradation of organic matter in wastewater from livestock stables is analyzed with the use of anaerobic micro-organisms obtained from wastewater samples from the study area. The research is divided into three phases. In the first, wastewater samples are taken from three farms in the area; in the second phase the samples are taken to the laboratory and three replicates of each collected sample are prepared to be analyzed and identified and the methanogenic bacteria that are responsible for degrading organic matter in anaerobic processes are isolated. In the last phase, two experiments are carried out with three repetitions each; in the first one, the contaminated water is placed without a previous dilution process. In the second experiment, a 75% dilution is carried out to recreate the real conditions in the treatment plants where the micro-organisms are going to be applied, which suffer dilutions due to the presence of constant precipitations in the analysis area. The results show a high elimination of organic matter and fecal coliforms in the wastewater treated with the identified micro-organisms, producing degradation kinetics of order 1 (exponential) with particular constants for each process.

Keywords

anaerobic micro-organisms, wastewater treatment, genetic characterization