Treatment of Yeast Products Wastes
Myron W. Tatlock
Partner, Ralph L. Woolpert Company, Consulting Engineers
Dayton, Ohio
Fermentation industries are not different from others which produce
waste products in either gaseous, liquid, or solid forms. These products
require treatment either because conservation prescribes that they be
eliminated from surface waters or treated in such a manner as to eliminate their pollutional features, or because economic competition forces
by-product recovery from the waste products. Either treatment or recovery becomes a process problem which must be considered in the selection of plant location, as well as in the cost of operation and the sale of
finished products. These features make the problem a community one.
Pollution elimination is essential to preserve the comfort, health, and
safety of the community; and by-product recovery may be counted on
at least to partially offset the cost of treatment and sometimes to produce valuable products from materials of a highly pollutional nature.
Industrial wastes can be roughly classified as organic or inorganic
for purposes of study and treatment. Effective studies require the services of engineers and chemists experienced in waste treatment in order to
devise the most desirable method of handling such wastes, and then all
the essentials of salesmanship must be employed to insure the incorporation and use of these methods in general plant processes.
The first requirement for every study is an investigation of the
entire plant processes which results in not only a complete knowledge
of the finished salable product but also a knowledge of the quality and
quantity of all waste products. The second requirement is just as complete knowledge of the processes and equipment available for handling
these products. This second requirement necessitates continued study and
research on the part of engineers to keep up with current developments
of treatment, processes, and equipment to insure the application of the
most appropriate process to the special problem under consideration.
Fermentation has been defined as the decomposition of complex
organic material into substances of simpler composition under the influence of nitrogenous organic substances called ferments. The transformation of grape juice into wine, the production of alcohol from
saccharine fluids prepared from cereals, and the rising of dough in bread-
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