Feature Report Part 2

Wastewater Treatment:
Three Steps to Achieving
Discharge Compliance
To ensure that wastewater discharge meets all compliance requirements, plants
should adopt a multi-tiered approach, rather than assuming that the downstream
treatment facilities can handle all potential contaminant loads
Peter E. Norman
been proven to be a
SUEZ — Water Technologies & Solutions

M
failing strategy. From a
ost industrial manu- plant-operations per-
facturing facilities are spective, waste mini-
required to meet strict mization also makes
limits on various con- sense. These materials
taminants in order to discharge represent an operat-
wastewater. Wastewater treat- ing cost to the facility,
ment facilities (Figure 1) remove the and overall profitabil-
specified contaminants, but achiev- ity requires minimizing
ing compliance with local and fed- the waste of valuable
eral regulations involves more than raw materials.
just installing and optimizing waste- From a wastewater
water treatment units. Treatment, troubleshooting per-
or contaminant removal, is just the spective, identification FIGURE 1. A typical wastewater treatment facility is not designed to
handle all possible combinations of contaminants, so a multi-stage
last stage of a three-step strategy of the source of the treatment regimen may be helpful in achieving discharge requirements
to ensure compliance. A wastewa- release is important.
ter treatment facility can rarely be Knowing the source helps to rapidly release, allowing minimization efforts
designed to successfully treat all identify the potential contaminants, to be targeted cost effectively. It also
possible combinations of flow and greatly helping with downstream provides an early warning to down-
contaminant concentrations that handling. It will also facilitate root- stream processes of the nature and
could come from a manufacturing cause analysis, which decreases the quantity of the release.
operation. Cost expenditure and chance of future releases. To do this,
space requirements alone would appropriate monitoring instrumenta- Stage 2: Equalize and isolate
make this single-stage approach tion should be installed early in the The second stage of the process to
prohibitively expensive. Reliable en- wastewater handling system — for prevent non-compliance comprises
vironmental compliance can only be instance, at sumps at each manu- one or both of inline equalization and
achieved by adhering to a regimen facturing unit. This provides an early offline isolation of excessive contam-
combining the following stages: warning for the next stage, as well as ination. This stage is necessary to
1. Good source control notifying process operators that a re- smooth out the variability in loading
2. Equalization and isolation lease is occurring. Too many plants to the third stage of contaminant re-
3. Contaminant removal still rely on manual communica- moval, and is typically implemented
tion of manufacturing upsets to the as tankage that stores and dilutes
Stage 1: Source control WWTP staff — an approach that is short spikes of contamination,
Source control, or waste minimiza- often inadequate. smooths out flow surges, neutralizes
tion, is the first stage of the process The choice of instrumentation will pH extremes or temporarily stores
of preventing the discharge of pro- depend on the nature of the process offline high-contaminant loads.
cess contaminants from wastewater. at each unit. It could include simple This storage-focused stage is often
Historically, process operations were instruments — such as devices to overlooked, but it is a critical compo-
not considered part of this strategy. monitor and control temperature, nent of an environmental compliance
The belief was that the wastewater conductivity or pH — or more com- strategy and should be maintained
treatment plant (WWTP) had to han- plex devices like total organic carbon and operated as such. Each type
dle whatever was released from the (TOC) analyzers. This allows identifi- of tank serves a somewhat different
manufacturing units. This has often cation of the specific source of each objective, and the original design of
38 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM OCTOBER 2022
 ing well, the contaminant when parameters start drifting away
loadings should be within from control. For example, many pri-
the design ranges of the mary treatment units are solids sepa-
WWTP equipment. How- ration devices that can benefit from
ever, in many cases, manu- online effluent-turbidity monitoring.
facturing processes have Secondary systems are harder
been expanded, which to bring back to optimal conditions
means they potentially after upsets. As such, these systems
may be releasing higher benefit more than any other part of
contaminant loadings than the WWTP from comprehensive
what was assumed in the monitoring. The monitoring of criti-
original WWTP design. cal operating parameters like pH and
FIGURE 2. Secondary treatment systems, such as an activated- Examples of increased dissolved oxygen should be online.
sludge process, can be vulnerable to contaminant overloading loading can be found in Other parameters, such as sludge
from upstream processes, especially if the plant has been ex-
panded or altered over time
the overall flow and the settleability, can be done by opera-
amount of solids (TSS, oil) tors using grab samples on a daily
each should be understood. or soluble organic materials or shift basis, where instrumenta-
Classic inline equalization can (oxygen demand). tion is not implemented. Biological
be one of two types: contaminant In such cases, reliable perfor- parameters can be very useful in
smoothing or flow smoothing. Oper- mance can still often be obtained spotting early signs of stress. These
ation for the former objective is best with adjustments to operation, include the routine use of micros-
achieved using a tank setup with a chemical feed or supplemental copy, as well as more modern moni-
large hydraulic retention time and equipment. It is recommended that toring techniques, such as those
good mixing. This allows the load- the original design of each unit based on adenosine triphosphate
ing surge to be immediately diluted, be clearly understood, so that the (ATP) measurements.
providing a steady outlet concentra- optimal operational revision can It can take weeks to recover from a
tion to the next stage, the WWTP. be implemented. major toxic load to a secondary sys-
These tanks can accumulate solids The flow and solids-handling ca- tem, which is the last line of defense
if mixing is inadequate, reducing re- pabilities of solids-separation units, before discharge. Therefore, good
tention, and thus equalization time. such as clarifiers, can often be ex- Stage 1 and Stage 2 operations are
Regular cleaning is required if solids tended with the use of modern integral parts of achieving reliable op-
accumulation is a problem. chemical-clarification aids, such as eration in the secondary system and
Flow smoothing, on the other coagulants and flocculants. Close the entire WWTP.
hand, requires spare volume ca- control of chemical additives is es- Effective and reliable permit com-
pacity to allow storage of the extra sential to the optimization of contam- pliance and pollution control depend
flow volume, with controlled release inant removal, especially when units on a comprehensive three-stage
at normal flowrates. This is impor- are operating at or above design strategy of waste minimization, or
tant because it allows downstream levels. Best practices include pacing source control, waste equaliza-
WWTP equipment to operate within all chemical feed systems to flow, en- tion or isolation, and contaminant
design conditions. The two objec- suring that dosage amounts remain removal in the wastewater treat-
tives can be in conflict and so two or constant as flow changes. Other ment plant. In addition, compre-
more tanks may be required if both chemical-feed automation practices hensive monitoring of water qual-
situations can occur. include feed-forward and feed-back ity and operational parameters,
Another type of surge-contami- control, for instance, using TSS or utilizing online instrumentation where
nant handling is offline storage, or turbidity as the controlled parameter. feasible, are critical to providing
isolation. The approach here is to Not all additives can be easily au- reliable compliance. ■
capture and store streams with very tomated, however, so manual test- Edited by Mary Page Bailey
high contaminant loads and then ing often still has to be completed
either dispose of them separately on a regular basis to ensure optimal Author
(offsite), or eventually carry out a treatment. Jar testing is one such Peter E. Norman is a senior prod-
controlled release back to the waste- manual method. uct applications engineer for SUEZ
– Water Technologies & Solutions
water stream, so that contaminant Secondary treatment systems, (Email: [email protected]).
loading stays within the capabilities such as activated-sludge biologi- He has spent 37 years in the in-
of the WWTP. cal systems (Figure 2), are often the dustrial water treatment space
most vulnerable to overloading and focusing on wastewater for over
25 of those years. His areas of
Stage 3: Contaminant removal variability in loading. This vulnerability specialization include clarification,
The third and final stage in achiev- poses the largest risk to environmen- flotation, metals removal, biologi-
ing reliable environmental compli- tal compliance because it is typically cal treatment and sludge dewatering. He is a member of
the Water Environment Federation and is the author of
ance is the classic wastewater the last step before discharge. several papers and articles on wastewater treatment
treatment plant itself. Better monitoring is also useful in and advanced monitoring. He holds a B.S. degrees in
Assuming that the first two stages optimizing the WWTP. Advanced in- chemical engineering and chemistry from The City Uni-
versity, U.K. and an M.S. degree in environmental pollu-
of contaminant control are work- strumentation allows faster response tion control from The University of Leeds, U.K.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM OCTOBER 2022 39