Culbac® Compost Aid: Cultured bacteria for your compost

One of the global concerns on farms, compost operations, and municipal waste facilities is measuring the activity and efficacy of their microbial digestion processes for organic matter. To help with this, we have investigated the efficacy of Culbac products to enhance and improve the digestion process and therefore to improve the return on investment for composting operations and to affect bio-gas formation.

Culbac additives are biochemical agents that are introduced to anaerobic digesters to stimulate microbial growth and metabolism and catalyze key biochemical reactions conducive to vigorous digestion. We use a formulation with Lactobacillus to enhance anaerobic digestion. Our products have been tested to provide support for fermentor bacterial organisms, growth factors, metabolic intermediates, enzymes, precursors of key basal materials, etc. that are not efficiently generated during most anaerobic fermentation processes.

Studies show adding low concentrations of Culbac products substantially improved high-rate digestion of sewage sludge at mesophilic temperatures positively impacting methane yield, methane production rate, and volatile solids reduction percentage differences and effluent volatile acids.

At high-rate loading and detention time conditions, stable digestion can be carried out at much higher loading and reduced detention times than conventional conditions with Culbac additive treatment while maintaining effluent quality and gas production, thereby increasing the waste treatment capacity of existing operations.