Wastewater Treatment

Wastewater Treatment

Waste Water Characteristics

Primary Treatment
Secondary Treatment
Biological Nutrient Removal
Sequencing Batch Reactors
Anaerobic Digestion

CHNG 3804
Fariba Dehghani

Why do we need to treat wastewater?

Public health concern and provide good quality water
Remove pollutants with adverse long-term effects
Disposal
Reuse
Recycling

Wastewater Treatment Techniques

Primary treatment (Physical)
Screening, mixing, flocculation, sedimentation,
floatation, filtration and gas transfer

Secondary treatment

Avoid or minimise environmental impacts

Chemical

Solid Disposal
Gas emission
Odour creation

The development of national concern for environmental

protection

Precipitation, adsorption, disinfection

Biological
Remove biodegradable organic substances (colloild or
dissolved), nutrients

Tertiary treatment (combination of all above)

Primary Treatment
Screening of comminution for removal of
debris and rags, grits to eliminate coarse
suspended matters that may cause
clogging
Floatation for removal of oil and grease

Secondary Treatment

Activated sludge
Fixed film reactors
Lagoon system
Sedimentation

Wastewater Characteristics
If we are looking at a wastewater problem
we need to know:
What is in the water stream?
What are the pollutants?

We also need to be able to classify the

pollutants

Types of Pollutants
Physical
Solids, Colour, Fats, Oil, Grease

Chemical
C, N, P, S
Salts and Salinity
Metals

Biological
Bacteria, viruses
Algae

There are many others

Priority Pollutants
The US EPA lists a large number of priority
pollutants for industrial wastewaters
These chemicals are known/suspected to be

Carcinogenic
Mutagenic
Teratogenic
Or Highly Toxic

Classification of Pollutants
There are an enormous number of
potential pollutants
How do we characterize the pollutants into
more manageable fractions?

http://oaspub.epa.gov/wqsdatabase/wqsi_epa_c
riteria.rep_parameter
See the Wastewater Engineering by Metcalf and
Eddy.

Organic Matter
Carbohydrate
Soluble: Sugars, Insoluble: Starches,
Cellulose fibres

Proteins
Solubility and biodegradability vary

Oil and Grease

Hydrophobic, mostly insoluble, float

alcohol, volatile fatty acids (VFAs)

Measurements of Organic Content

BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand)
Widely used
License requirement
Not reproducible

Measures the oxygen requirement for

biological oxidation of organics
Standard is 5 days at 20oC (BOD5)
May need to dilute samples before
measurements

Problems with BOD

Chemical Oxygen Demand

Very high (>1,000mg/L)and Very low (<10

mg/L) values can be unreliable
Inhibitors present in industrial wastewaters
can give low results
BOD may also measure uptake of oxygen
due to Nitrification
2NH4+ + 4O2 => 2NO3- + 2H2O + 4H+

Degrades all organics (not just those

which are biodegradable)
Can be used in mass balances
Standard: K2Cr2O7/H2SO4 @ 145oC
Reduction of dichromate causes change in
colour
Measured with spectrophotometer (Merck)

Measurements of Organic Content

Solids

TOC (Total Organic Carbon)

Chemical Method
Reproducible
Expensive

Solids

Wastewater contains a large variety of solids

Solids can be classified as
Total Solids (TS) Residue remaining after evaporation
~105oC
Total Volatile Solids (TVS) Solids that can be
volatilized and burned off from TS @ 500oC
Total Fixed Solids (TFS) Residue remaining after TS
@ 500oC
Total Suspended Solids (TSS) Portion of TS retained
on filter
Volatile Suspended Solids (VSS) Solids that can be
volatilized and burned off from TSS @ 500oC

Solids

Solids contd
Fixed Suspended Solids (FSS) Residue remaining
after TSS @ 500oC
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS = TS-TSS) Solids which
can pass through a 2m membrane.
Total Volatile Dissolved Solids (VDS) Solids that can
be volatilized and burned off from TDS @ 500oC
Fixed Dissolved Solids (FDS) Residue remaining after
TDS @ 500oC
Settleable Solids Suspended solids which settle out in
a specified period of time

Analysis of Solid Data (Example)

Analysis of Solid Data (Example)

The following test results were obtained for a wastewater sample

taken at the headworks to a wastewater treatment plant. All of the
test were performed using a sample size of 50 mL. Determine the
concentration of total solids, total volatile solids, suspended solids,
and volatile suspended solids. The samples used in a solid analyses
were all either evaporated, dried, or ignited to constant weight.
Tare mass of evaporative dish = 53.5433 g
Mass of evaporating dish plus residue after evaporation at 105C =
53.5793 g
Mass of evaporating dish plus residue after ignition at 550C =
53.5772 g
Tare mass of Whatman GF/C filter= 1.5433 g
Residue on whatman GF/C filter after drying at 105C= 1.5553
Residue on whatman GF/C filter after ignition at 550C = 1.5531 g

Proteins
Urea

Ammonia (NH3-N and NH4-N)

NH3/NH4+

Nitrate/Nitrites
NO3-/NO2-

Phosphates
Inorganic Phosphates
H3PO4, H2PO4-, HPO42-, PO43 Can be measured colorimetrically

Organic Phosphates
Determined indirectly via total phosphates
Oxidation to inorganic phosphates then
colorimetric determination.

(53.5793 53.5433 )x1000

= 720mg / L
0.050

VS =

(53.5793 53.5772 )x1000

= 42mg / L
0.050

SS =

(1.5553 1.5433 )x1000

= 240mg / L
0.050

VSS =

Nitrogen
Organic (Org-N)

TS =

(1.5553 1.5531)x1000
= 44mg / L
0.050

Nitrogen Measurements
Nitrates and Ammonia can be determined by
colorimetric methods
To determine the organic nitrogen it is
necessary to use the Kjeldahl method

Organic nitrogen is converted to NH4-N

NH4-N is converted into NH3-N by changing the pH
NH3-N is boiled off and dissolved in H2SO4
The NH3-N in the H2SO4 is determined
colorimetrically.
The Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (TKN) is the (Org-N) +
(NH3-N and NH4-N)

Primary Treatment
Initial treatment to prepare wastewater for
further treatment downstream
Based on physical property differences
Density Sedimentation
Size Filtration
Hydrophobicity Floatation
Charge Coagulation
Solubility - Precipitation

Primary Treatment
Technologies used
Screens
Grit Removal
Primary Sedimentation
Equalisiation
Coagulation
Dissolved Air Floatation
Neutralisation
Precipitation

Grit Removal
Gravity settling of gravel and heavy organics.
Protect downstream equipment.
Popular designs
Horizontal trench
Cylindrical settler

Design basis: 0.2mm particle with =

2.65kg/L.

Equalisation
Waste waters tend to vary in pH, temperature,
flow, composition etc.
Biological processes in particular do not like
dramatic changes in conditions.
Need a way to buffer downstream processes from
large changes
Dont want to build an excessive large plant

Generally done with a tank to provide residence

time and hence reduce the magnitude of
changes.

Screens
First Unit Operation in most wastewater
treatment processes
Typically made form stainless steel with
0.25-5mm holes
Removal of coarse solids and protection of
downstream processing equipment
Static, vibrating or contra shear

Primary Sedimentation
Removal of organic solids which are heavier than water.
Sometimes combined with flocculation.
Well designed will remove 60-70% of solids and 25-40%
of BOD5
Popular designs
Horizontal trench
Cylindrical settler more popular as same design is also used in
secondary clarifiers

Design basis
Retention time of 2-2.5 hrs
Normal Surface loading rate of 30-50m3.m2.d-1
Peak Surface loading rate of 80-120m3.m2.d-1

Floatation
Used to remove fine suspended particles.
Generally uses bubbles of gas
Dissolved Air Floatation (DAF) is the most
common
Air is dissolved in a recycled stream of the
effluent at high pressure and then is fed
into the DAF where small bubbles form,
taking the small particles to the surface.

Dissolved Air Floatation

DAF
Key operational parameter is the air to
solid ratio (mL of air to mg of solids)

Air
Overflow

Typical values are 0.01 to 0.06

Effluent
Influent
Feed
4 atm

The float solids concentration is typically

2-10%
Removal Efficiency of greater than 80%
possible
Need pilot studies for design and
operating conditions.

Underflow

Other Chemical Treatments

pH neutralisation
Precipitation
Most metals have a minimum solubility at pH 8-10

Coagulation and Flocculation

Improve settling by increasing particle size

Generally use poly-valent cations, Fe2+/3+ and Al3+
Can use surfactants
Usually do jar tests to determine appropriate
concentrations

Summary
In this lecture we have looked at
Commonly found pollutants in waste water
Classification of pollutants
Measurements
Primary treatment options

Fats, Oil and Grease Removal

Centrifuge
Rotary Drum Vacuum Filter
Inclined Plate Separator
Biological Treatment
Evaporators
Gravity Separators
Membranes
DAF

References
Wastewater Engineering, Treatment, Disposal and
Reuse by Metcalf and Eddy
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/5161/water1.ht
m
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/5161/wwtps.
htm
http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/PublicWorks/Sewer/w
wtppg_4.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment
http://ohioline.osu.edu/aex-fact/0768.html