Effects of folic acid on the efficiency of biological wastewater treatment

Efficiency losses occur in biological wastewater treatment systems due to various reasons and vitamin shortage was mentioned to be one of these reasons. Especially folic acid was found to stimulate biomass growth and metabolisms. Therefore, it is important how to adjust folic acid addition and to control its concentration in a biological wastewater treatment system. In this study, the effects of folic acid application were studied for a domestic biological wastewater treatment system with a 300 m super(3)/day capacity. The rate of wastewater entering the system, its efficiency parameters in the inlet and outlet, and the values regarding biomass were monitored. It was observed that treatment efficiency increased and values at the system's outlet could be stabilized by continuous dosage of folic acid, whereas non-continuous dosage enormously decreased efficiency and caused remarkable variations of discharge parameters.