CEST2025

The aim of this study is to eliminate petroleum derivatives in wastewater treatment plant sludge and to replace them with biosourced and biodegradable flocculants. The latter targets the treatment of wastewater in municipal or industrial treatment plants and, more particularly, the problem of sludge treatment and its recovery in agriculture. The BIOFLOC project aims to develop and validate a procedure for producing a bioflocculant from a bacterial consortium produced in non-sterile conditions on a medium formulated from waste from the agro-food industry. The developments and optimizations envisaged for the production process will make it possible to obtain a bioflocculant whose effectiveness will approach or even equal that of polyacrylamide and which will be inexpensive. The sludge produced using the bioflocculant from the procedure will not include toxic products added by the bioflocculation process itself as is the case with polyacrylamide. They can therefore be used as agricultural fertilizer while respecting current and future European legislation. Before being used in agriculture, the sludge is thickened and dehydrated by the addition of polyacrylamide type flocculants. Bioflocculants of microbial origin have significant flocculation activity, they are non-toxic and biodegradable. The one produced according to the procedure developed by BIOFLOC will be easily implemented, making it possible to obtain easy subsequent mechanical separation of flocs and water.