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Current Troubleshooting of Wastewater Treatment Plant and Proposed Measurement: Current Situation of SLW Treatment Plant

The wastewater treatment plant was experiencing sludge bulking due to insufficient aeration from compressor issues and overloading of the system. To address this, the plant increased the addition of animal waste and fertilizer to the aeration tank, shifted the compressors to manual mode to increase dissolved oxygen, and reduced inflow to 50% to allow the sludge to be removed. Moving forward, the plan is to gradually increase inflow as the microbial levels stabilize to prevent overloading.

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Faisal Shahzad
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15 views2 pages

Current Troubleshooting of Wastewater Treatment Plant and Proposed Measurement: Current Situation of SLW Treatment Plant

The wastewater treatment plant was experiencing sludge bulking due to insufficient aeration from compressor issues and overloading of the system. To address this, the plant increased the addition of animal waste and fertilizer to the aeration tank, shifted the compressors to manual mode to increase dissolved oxygen, and reduced inflow to 50% to allow the sludge to be removed. Moving forward, the plan is to gradually increase inflow as the microbial levels stabilize to prevent overloading.

Uploaded by

Faisal Shahzad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Current Troubleshooting of Wastewater Treatment Plant and Proposed

Measurement:

Current Situation of SLW Treatment Plant:


Currently, the phenomenon of sludge bulking prevails in wastewater treatment due to lack of
dissolved oxygen in aeration tank. Reasons of sludge bulking are as follow:

 Insufficient Aeration
 Over loading

Due to the fault in recycling pump, we are unable to recycle the sludge in aeration tank which is
the requirement to give feed to MLSS. After the repair of recycle pump, we should add inflow
wastewater step wise to avoid overloading. But due to the ECCO audit, we are compelled to
enter the full flow to aeration tank because auditors visited the wastewater treatment plant. To
deal with the full flow of wastewater we added increased quantity of animal waste and fertilizer.
Auditors analyzed the complete process and also checked the effluent sample. The results were
under PEQS.

We controlled overloading somehow by adding increased amount of animal waste and fertilizer.
While yesterday, compressors of aeration tanks was not running for 6 hrs due to electricity
problem and one compressor was stopped for 16 hrs due to oil leakage. Due to the insufficient
supply of Dissolved oxygen, sludge bulking takes place.

Due to the two factors (Insufficient Aeration and Overloading), filamentous growth of
microorganisms takes place which give rise to dead sludge in aeration tank.

Proposed Measurements:
We increased the addition of animal waste and fertilizer in aeration tank to give more feed to MLSS.
Also, we shift the compressors of aeration tank from auto to manual mode to give more dissolved oxygen
to MLSS. We reduced the inflow to 50%. So, that dead sludge can come forward and removed from
secondary sedimentation tank (SST) and also through final clarifier.

We will increased the amount of inflow step wise to the aeration tank when MLSS will be completely
stable and will be able to bear complete inflow so, that overloading can be avoided.
Related Definitions:
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)
Biochemical oxygen Demand (BOD) of wastewater is the amount of oxygen required by
microorganisms, for biochemical oxidation of organic matter, present in the wastewater, at
certain specified temperature and period. It is measured in mg/l

Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)


Chemical oxygen demand (COD) of wastewater is the oxygen equivalent of the organic matter in
the wastewater that can be oxidized chemically. It is measured in mg/l

Dissolved Oxygen (DO)


Dissolved oxygen (DO) is the amount of oxygen, expressed in mg/l, present in water or
wastewater.

DO concentrations in clean fresh water range from 7 to 12 mg/l and DO range for aeration tank
is 2 mg/l

Sludge Settle ability


Efficiency of ASP depends upon the settle ability of sludge in secondary clarifier. The biological
floc that settles well under gravity leaves a clear supernatant for disposal. Conversely, poorly
flocculated particles or filamentous microorganisms that do not separate by gravity contribute to
BOD and suspended solids in effluent.

Sludge Bulking
Excessive carryover of flocs, in the effluent, resulting in inefficient operation of secondary
clarifier, is referred as Sludge Bulking. It is usually due to filamentous microorganisms. Reasons
for sludge bulking may be:

 Insufficient aeration (DO < 2.0 mg/L)


 Lack of nutrients (i.e., N, P)
 Presence of toxic substances
 Over Loading i.e., high F:M ratios
 Sudden change in wastewater characteristics (pH, BOD etc)

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