Wastewater treatment process description
Wastewater Treatment Plant Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) are facilities created to remove contaminants from effluents. These facilities can be found in industrial plants, treating the industrial wastewater generated in the production process, or they can be found as part of the municipal wastewater treatment process attending to the sewage produced in water, commerce and small […]
COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) – Indicator for water pollution
Chemical Oxygen Demand, also known as COD, accounts for the amount of oxygen consumed in a solution by chemical reactions in order to consume organic contaminants present, typically measured in milligrams per liter (mg/L). As oxygen is a fundamental element for degradation of any product, the amount of oxygen that is present and consumed in […]
Trickling filter process – Advantages in comparison to activated sludge
Trickling filters, also known as bio filters, are normally a fixed-bed, biological reactor operating in aerobic conditions. In the filter, microorganisms are attached to the inter packing material which was composed of rocks or gravel in the past and is nowadays a wide range of plastic fill media. Fill media support is placed on the […]
Drinking water cycle – How many people consumed my tap water before me?
Drinking water is part of a continuous recirculation process and the two basic water sources are surface water and groundwater. Surface water is every water source which is above earth’s ground, so for example rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs and oceans. Instead, Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth’s surface in soil pore spaces and in […]
3 signs of an unhealthy lagoon – wastewater treatment
Wastewater treatment lagoons are wide spread in the US with more than 6,000 plants in use. Especially in areas with a low population density, lagoons are proven to be a good solution as they require only little construction and operation cost. However changing influent values due to population growth, new industries or other effects can […]
MBR, MBBR and FBBR – Comparison of wastewater treatment technologies (PART 2)
The comparison of the three systems show different advantages and disadvantages for industrial wastewater applications: 1. Effluent water quality: MBRs show in general a slightly better BOD removal than MBBRs or FBBRs. Very fine membranes can even hold back germs so that the water effluent quality is in general better. 2. Resistance to influent peaks […]
MBR, MBBR and FBBR – Comparison of wastewater treatment technologies (PART 1)
MBR, MBBR and FBR are widely used technologies in wastewater treatment especially for industrial applications with a high BOD loading such as food and beverages, dairy, chemical, leachate and others. As industrial applications usually have volatile water inflows, equalization tanks are used for water storage and eventually PH neutralization as well as flocculation. Afterwards screens […]
Drinking water from surface water
With decreasing groundwater reservoirs, alternative resources for drinking water become more and more important. Already today a tremendous amount of our tap water comes from surface water resources such as rivers and lakes. Before surface water reaches our taps it undergoes various process steps. Drinking water pretreatment includes coagulation and flocculation before particles are settled […]
Beneficial Biofilm Bacteria in waste water treatment
Most people relate Biofilm bacteria as something nasty and harmful. This is understandable as we normally come across Biofilm bacteria attached to shower heads, pipes, kitchen sinks or chillers at home or public places. Here Biofilm bacteria can cause corrosion, fouling or even lead to legionella growth. In the last few years public media discovered […]
Sedimentation and lamella clarifiers
Particles in water and waste water accelerate towards the tank bottom as long as the gravity force is bigger than the sum of all drag forces. The settling velocity of the particle is Vs = H/t. In reality the settling velocity is never constant as other particles, water turbulences and sludge accumulation hinder the settling […]