Improve the performance of full-scale continuous treatment of municipal wastewater by combining a numerical model and online sensors

Modeling, instrumentation, automation, and optimization of water resource recovery facilities (Review of 2018 Literature) DIRECT

A review of the literature published in 2018 on topics relating to water resource recovery facilities (WRRF) in the areas of modeling, automation, measurement and sensors and optimization of wastewater treatment (or water resource reclamation) is presented. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Summary of advances in the field of modeling, instrumentation, automation, and optimization in 2018. This review outlines the major contributions of researchers and practitioners that have been published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. The article is organized into sections for ease of reference, but several reviewed articles are related to more than one section.

Model-based evaluation of a trickling filter facility upgrade to biological nutrient removal

This article presents the feasibility evaluation and preliminary design of a wastewater treatment plant upgrade supported by simulation. The existing facility was based on trickling filters, and the objective of the upgrade was to achieve nutrients removal. The proposed solution modifies the existing primary clarifier to host an anaerobic-anoxic suspended growth reactor, which is an alternative that, to our knowledge, has not been proposed or explored so far. The trickling filters would remain as aerobic reactors. In this study, the novel treatment scheme has been assessed for the first time, through model simulations. The modified treatment train was simulated, showing that the anoxic zone is able to denitrify satisfactorily achieving the required effluent nitrogen concentration. However, to promote biological phosphorus removal, an additional aerobic zone combined with a bypass of activated sludge from the anoxic zone to the first trickling filter is needed, in order to provide aerobic conditions to the phosphate accumulating organisms. Several combinations of additional aerobic volume and sludge bypass flowrate were found to successfully achieve both nitrogen and phosphorus removal, using the existing facilities without the need for new reactors neither implementing modifications that could put the trickling filters' physical integrity at risk. The novel treatment scheme could be applied in other cases with similar flowsheet in the same context.