Join us in New Orleans for WEFTEC 2016, Sept. 24-28. Experience high-quality, comprehensive education such as 29 workshops, 130 technical sessions, 16 mobile sessions on the exhibit floor, facility tours and so much more! Register here.
Trevor Ghylin, P.E., PhD1 (Founder and CTO of Microbe Detectives), Leon Downing PE, PhD (Senior Technologist, CH2M) and Jeremy Cramer (Superintendent, City of Fond du Lac, WI) will present the WEFTEC technical session “Nutrient Removal: Using DNA to Monitor and Troubleshoot” on Tuesday, September 27, 2016 in Room 347 at 4:30pm.
Nutrient Removal: Using DNA to Monitor and Troubleshoot
Monitoring and troubleshooting of wastewater treatment processes has been limited by our ability to see into the microbial world of these systems. The primary tool at our disposal is a simple microscope, not unlike microscopes that have been around for more than one hundred years. The microscope is able to give us some very quick information (i.e. filaments, pin floc, protozoans, etc) but doesn’t provide precise identification or quantification of beneficial or problem bacteria. Fortunately, recent advances in DNA sequencing now allow us to sequence DNA from samples of biomass in wastewater treatment plants and identify and quantify nearly all the microbes in the system. This allows us to provide precise identification and quantification of all the microbes important to the system. Now that we finally can “look inside the black box” we can start to solve problems and optimize the system.
Trevor Ghylin will also present “Industrial Treatment Troubleshooting: DNA Can Help You” at WEFTEC 2016 on Wednesday, September 28, 2016 in Room 243 at 9:00am.