Question

Difference between biostimulation and bioaugmentation

Answer 1

difference between biostimulation and bioaugmentation

In our world, we say we bio-augment, which means to enhance by adding biology. In our case it usually means adding some form of microorganism that will help complete the work you are trying to do at a much faster rate. In wastewater that might be breaking down sludge in a pulp and paper lagoon or grease in a food processing waste lagoon. Understand there are often already natural flora that do this, but at times something has happened that requires we supplement or enhance what is happening there. Sometimes bleach was dumped down the drain, and thus the current microflora have been killed (known as an upset), so we will speed up the recovery process by adding our bacteria. Or sometimes the natural flora do a great job on digesting the materials except for certain substrates in the waste that build up over time (like sludge, fats, oils and grease). So we will add bacteria that love sludge, fats, oils and grease. This saves them from renting heavy machinery to do a dredging process that could cost $0.5-1 Million/yr. So basically we are enhancing the process by adding biology.

At times we may also do biostimulation which is the adding of a nutrient or electron acceptor that might be required for the natural flora to function or function faster. In this case, the environment such as the soil, wastewater, landfill, etc. is missing something that the natural microbes need to function at all or function at a high rate. So we have a product that makes the natural flora grow faster. With a biostimulation product you may not be adding any of your biology (microbes), but relying solely on the natural flora