Update on my inquiry with Cal Poly SLO: This morning I received a phone call from a professor in the Environmental Engineering Dept. regarding my inquiry about a study on sludge digestion via bacteria. He expressed a lot of excitement about the project as he is very involved in studying the application of bacteria to break down specific pollutants such as MTBE's at oil contamination sites among others. He says he has several grad students that would be interested in this project. I will be meeting with him next week to discuss more details of the project and of course funding.
I encourage anyone who is interested in this topic to provide input on how we can make this study as useful and credible as possible.
A few things that we discussed this morning:
1. Testing will take place in jars rather than ponds in order to isolate the variables.
2. Sludge samples will be taken from several locations throughout a pond known to receive "natural" runoff such as leaf litter and perhaps urban runoff as well. Sludge samples will be thuroughly mixed into one composit sample to be tested.
3. Relative reduction of sediments will be based on weight (Total Solids vs. Total Volatile Solids) rather than volume since the biproduct of bacterial digestion can produce a very light & fluffy floc that tends to settle on the surface of the thicker sludge.
4. Bacteria will be provided different environments such as aerated vs. unaerated, bacteria vs. no bacteria, stirring vs. no stirring, different temperatures & pH etc...
5. Different brands of bacteria will be used
I'm open to suggestions so please share your thoughts with me.
