What is "bioaugmentation"

n. The use of microorganisms to help decompose pollutants.

Bioaugmentation- the addition of archaea or bacterial cultures required to speed up the rate of degradation of a contaminant. In a place filled with contamination, microbial life usually finds it as a place to call home. The biological material that originated in this contaminated area is able to break down waste, but when the amount of waste overloads it needs help from a foreign form to increase performance in breaking down chemicals. Bioaugmentation develops the biological material in order to smoothly break down certain compounds. When a microbe is added to the contaminated area, they are able to improve the biological material’s capability to behave in a manner as to break down contamination that was already broken up before.

This enhanced treatment can lead to the cure of contamination in wastewater and agricultural improving biological waste treatment systems. Usually the steps involve studying the indigenous varieties present in the location to determine if biostimulation is possible. If the indigenous variety do not have the metabolic capability to perform the remediation process, exogenous varieties with such sophisticated pathways are introduced.

Bioaugmentation is commonly used in municipal wastewater treatment to restart activated sludge bioreactors. Most cultures available contain a research based consortium of Microbial cultures, containing all necessary microorganisms ( B. licheniformis, B. thuringiensis, P. polymyxa, B. stearothermophilus, Penicillium sp., Aspergillus sp., Flavobacterium, Arthrobacter, Pseudomonas, Streptomyces, Saccharomyces, Triphoderma, etc.). Whereas activated sludge systems are generally based on microorganisms like bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, rotifers and fungi capable to degrade bio degradable organic matter.There are many positive outcomes from the use of bioaugmentation like the improvement in efficiency and speed of the process of breaking down substances and the reduction of toxic particles inhibiting an area.