How does Sewerage System Work?

Urban Sewerage System

In urban and suburban areas where people are packed closer together and where there is a lot
more wastewater to treat, the community will construct a sewer system that collects wastewater
and takes it to a wastewater treatment facility.
In the ideal case, sewer system is completely gravity powered meaning Sewer systems should
rely heavily on the workings of gravity. Where does sewage come from? Sewage comes from the
people using water in the kitchens and bathrooms iin their homes and from commercial and
industrial use. As u can see in the picture, Sewage runs from houses and buildings and through
underground pipes down to a sewer main the primary pipeline in a sewerage system to which all
the branching pipes carrying sewage from different locations are connected. In other words, the
main sewer carries the sewage from these branches to the treatment plant. As you can see that
underground pipes are not just composed of horizontally inclined pipes, there is also a vertical
pipe that runs up from the main to the surface, where it is covered by a manhole cover. Manholes
allow access to the main for maintenance purposes.
The sewer mains flow into progressively larger pipes until they reach the wastewater treatment
plant. In order to help gravity do its job, the wastewater treatment plant is usually located in a
low-lying area, and sewer mains will often follow creekbeds and streambeds (which flow
naturally downhill) to the plant.

Normally, the lay of the land will not completely cooperate, and gravity cannot do all the work.
In these cases, the sewer system will include a grinder-pump or a lift station to move the
wastewater up over a hill.

Once the water reaches the wastewater treatment plant, it goes through one, two or three stages
of treatment (depending on the sophistication of the plant). Here's what each stage does:

Pretreatment
Pretreatment removes all materials that can be easily collected from the raw sewage before they
damage or clog the pumps and sewage lines of primary treatment clarifiers. Objects commonly
removed during pretreatment include trash, tree limbs, leaves, branches, and other large objects.
a. Grit removal
- is necessary to (1) reduce formation of heavy deposits in aeration tanks, aerobic
digesters, pipelines, channels, and conduits; (2) reduce the frequency of digester
cleaning caused by excessive accumulations of grit; and (3) protect moving
mechanical equipment from abrasion and accompanying abnormal wear.
 b. Flow equalization
- used for temporary storage of diurnal or wet-weather flow peaks. Basins
provide a place to temporarily hold incoming sewage during plant maintenance
and a means of diluting and distributing batch discharges of toxic or high-strength
waste which might otherwise inhibit biological secondary treatment (including
portable toilet waste, vehicle holding tanks, and septic tank pumpers).
c. Fat and grease removal
- In some larger plants, fat and grease are removed by passing the sewage through
a small tank where skimmers collect the fat floating on the surface. Air blowers in
the base of the tank may also be used to help recover the fat as a froth. Many
plants, however, use primary clarifiers with mechanical surface skimmers for fat
and grease removal.

Primary treatment
In the primary sedimentation stage, sewage flows through large tanks, commonly called "pre-
settling basins", "primary sedimentation tanks" or "primary clarifiers". The tanks are used to
settle sludge while grease and oils rise to the surface and are skimmed off. Primary settling tanks
are usually equipped with mechanically driven scrapers that continually drive the collected
sludge towards a hopper in the base of the tank where it is pumped to sludge treatment facilities.
Grease and oil from the floating material can sometimes be recovered for saponification (soap
making).

Secondary treatment
This removes dissolved and suspended biological matter. Secondary treatment is typically
performed by indigenous, water-borne micro-organisms in a managed habitat. Secondary
treatment may require a separation process to remove the micro-organisms from the treated
water prior to discharge or tertiary treatment.

Secondary treatment systems are classified as fixed-film or suspended-growth systems.

 Fixed-film or attached growth systems include trickling filters, constructed wetlands, bio-
towers, and rotating biological contactors, where the biomass grows on media and the
sewage passes over its surface.
 Suspended-growth systems include activated sludge, where the biomass is mixed with the
sewage and can be operated in a smaller space than trickling filters that treat the same
amount of water.
Tertiary treatment
Is sometimes defined as anything more than primary and secondary treatment in order to allow
ejection into a highly sensitive or fragile ecosystem (estuaries, low-flow rivers, coral reefs...).
Treated water is sometimes disinfected chemically or physically (for example, by lagoons
and microfiltration) prior to discharge into a stream, river, bay, lagoon or wetland, or it can be
used for the irrigation of a golf course, green way or park. If it is sufficiently clean, it can also be
used for groundwater recharge or agricultural purposes.
a. Filtration
-Sand filtration removes much of the residual suspended matter.[8]:22–23 Filtration
over activated carbon, also called carbon adsorption, removes residual toxins
b. Lagoons or ponds
- Lagoons or ponds provide settlement and further biological improvement
through storage in large man-made ponds or lagoons. These lagoons are highly
aerobic and colonization by native macrophytes, especially reeds, is often
encouraged.
c. Biological nutrient removal
- Biological nutrient removal (BNR) is regarded by some as a type of secondary
treatment process,[2] and by others as a tertiary (or "advanced") treatment process.
d. Nitrogen removal
- Nitrogen is removed through the biological oxidation of nitrogen
from ammonia to nitrate (nitrification), followed by denitrification, the reduction
of nitrate to nitrogen gas. Nitrogen gas is released to the atmosphere and thus
removed from the water.
e. Phosphorus removal
-Phosphorus removal is important as it is a limiting nutrient for algae growth in
many fresh water systems. (For a description of the negative effects of
algae, see Nutrient removal). It is also particularly important for water reuse
systems where high phosphorus concentrations may lead to fouling of
downstream equipment such as reverse osmosis.
f. Disinfection
-The purpose of disinfection in the treatment of waste water is to substantially
reduce the number of microorganisms in the water to be discharged back into the
environment for the later use of drinking, bathing, irrigation, etc. The
effectiveness of disinfection depends on the quality of the water being treated
(e.g., cloudiness, pH, etc.), the type of disinfection being used, the disinfectant
dosage (concentration and time), and other environmental variables