<p> Although both steady state and dynamic simulation studies of the activated sludge process are available, the data bases employed have traditionally been: derived from bench scale studies, derived from historical monitoring data, synthetic based on mathematical functions. Actual plant operating data, if available, would reflect full scale operation and would provide a much better data base to judge existing or future process models. This study was designed to provide a more comprehensive data base than presently existed on a full scale municipal activated sludge system. Both flow and component concentrations were continuously measured on two hour intervals for two periods of 10 days and 5 days duration. Streams sampled included the plant influent, the primary clarifier effluent, the aeration tank effluent, the secondary clarifier effluent, the activated sludge recycle and the waste sludge line. Based on total nitrogen and total phosphorus, the data were examined for mass flow closure around the aeration tank. A time dependent mixing model based on two unequal volume stirred tank reactors in series was found to adequately describe the observed variation in aeration tank input-output data. The measured aeration tank inflow and outflow was corrected to give a hydraulic balance using a statistical procedure which generates flow corrections based on expected measurement error. The resulting total nitrogen and total phosphorus material balances were found to improve based on a reduction of the residual sum of squares.</p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

Over the past decade, the occurrence and removal of emerging contaminants in the environment has received much attention. Both natural and synthetic progestogens, which are hormones, and also benzotriazoles are two examples of such emerging contaminants. Sewage treatment works are recognised as one of the main routes of these compounds to the environment. Low concentrations (nanograms per litre) of biologically active chemicals may exhibit an impact on aquatic organisms and human health. This study was undertaken to determine the occurrence and removal of these two classes of chemicals at sewage treatment works, along with an evaluation of the performance of advanced treatment and also to investigate their fate in the aquatic environment. Therefore, field-based sampling campaigns were undertaken at a sewage treatment works, rivers and potable water to achieve these aims. Solid phase extraction and LC/MS/MS were used in order to analyse the samples from these different locations, along with catchment modelling and assessment of how the use of benzotriazoles may contribute to their presence in the environment. The results have demonstrated that progestogens and benzotriazoles are in the sewage system; the natural hormone (progesterone) was the most predominant compound entering the sewage treatment work (46.9 ng/l) among the progestogens while concentrations of the benzotriazoles were two orders of magnitude higher than the progestogens. The conventional sewage treatment works were, to some extent, able to remove these compounds from wastewaters. However, this may not be adequate to afford protection to the environment. The investigation of advanced treatments, ozone, granular activated carbon and chlorine dioxide, indicated no further significant removal of progestogens, probably as a result of concentrations being close to method detection limits. However, there were indications that benzotriazoles were removed. A degradation study demonstrated that the natural hormone (progesterone) was degraded rapidly while benzotriazoles were not degraded. Catchment modelling indicated that high (up to 2,000 ng/l) concentrations of benzotriazoles would be present in surface waters used for potable supply, and consequently benzotriazoles were found in the tap water with mean concentrations of 30.9 ng/l (benzotriazole) and 15.1 ng/l for tolyltriazole. It is therefore apparent that although conventional treatment may be seen as effective, achieving over 90% removal, this may not be good enough. However, before investing in tertiary treatment, a number of factors, such as the effectiveness at different sites, the presence of degradation products and costs, both financial and in relation to energy use, need to be considered.

This thesis aims to investigate and assess the future conditions for Volvo GTO Umeå after the installation of a new pre-treatment facility. The treatment method used is physical-chemical precipitation. Its function is to precipitate contaminants such as nickel, zinc and phosphorus, make them flocculate by adding a coagulant and separate the flocs by sedimentation. An investigation was carried out at the Volvo plant to locate the major inflow of waste water. These major inflows was analyzed and future scenarios was predicted by estimating a lower pre-treatment flow volume. The future scenarios showed that the volume and content will be greatly lowered. This will change many of the treatment plants performance factors, such as residence time, metal ion concentration and how much chemicals needed to treat the contaminants. Volvos physical-chemical precipitation plant was compared to the best available technique document drawn up in the framework of the implementation of the Industrial Emission Directive (2010/75/EU). The findings in the comparison showed that the Volvo plant works at a desirable degree and that the plant itself is considered best available technique when treating the current and future contaminants. Thus the physical-chemical precipitation technique can be used to treat the future waste water flows if the treatment plants performance factors are adjusted for.

No description available.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

Dyes are often recalcitrant organic molecules that produce a colour change and contribute to the organic load and toxicity of textile industrial wastewater. Untreated effluent from such sources is harmful to aquatic life in the rivers and lakes due to reduced light penetration and the presence of highly toxic metal complex dyes. The use of alum as flocculant/coagulant in wastewater treatment is not encouraged as it induces Alzheimer’s disease in humans and results in the production of large amounts of sludge. Therefore, the development of safe and biodegradable flocculating agents that will minimize environmental and health risks may be considered as an important issue in wastewater treatment. Bioflocculants are extracellular polymers synthesized by living cells. In this study, bacterial bioflocculants were assessed for their ability to remove dyes from textile wastewater as well as reducing the microbial load in untreated river water. The bacteria were isolated from a wastewater treatment plant and identified using standard biochemical tests as well as the analysis of their 16S rDNA gene sequences. Six bacterial isolates were identified viz. Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas plecoglossicida, Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes, Exiguobacterium acetylicum, Bacillus subtilis, and Klebsiella terrigena. The flocculating activities of the bioflocculants produced by these isolates were characterized. The effect of temperature, pH, cations and bioflocculant concentration on the removal of dyes, kaolin clay and microbial load was also determined. The amount of bioflocculants produced by the bacterial isolates ranged between 5 and 27.66 g/l. According to the findings of the present study, bacterial bioflocculants were composed of carbohydrates, proteins, uronic acid, and hexosamine in varying quantities. The bioflocculants were effective to varying degrees in removing the dyes in aqueous solution, in particular whale dye, medi-blue, fawn dye and mixed dyes, with a decolourization efficiency ranging between 20-99.9%. Decolourization efficiency was influenced by the bioflocculant concentration, pH, temperature, and cations. The bacterial bioflocculants were also capable of reducing both the kaolin clay and the microbial load from river water. The flocculating activity ranged between 2.395–3.709 OD-1 while up to 70.84% of kaolin clay and 99% of the microbial load from the river water was removed. The efficiency of kaolin clay flocculation increased with higher concentration of bacterial bioflocculants. The optimum pH for the flocculating activity was observed between 6 and 9. The best flocculating activity was observed at 28oC. Divalent cations such as Mg2+ and Mn2+ improved the flocculation while salts such as K2HPO4, CH2COONa, and Na2CO3 did not. The findings of this study strongly suggest that microbial bioflocculants could provide a promising alternative to replace or supplement the physical and chemical treatment processes of river water and textile industry effluent. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Photocatalysis is a series of advanced light-induced redox reaction processes resulting in the degradation and mineralization of organic pollutants in the presence of oxygen and water. Due to their capability to destroy contaminants under mild conditions, photocatalytic processes have attracted considerable attention in the field of waste-water treatment. However, photocatalytic reactions using the traditional TiO2 photocatalyst suffer from low energy efficiencies under solar irradiation. This low efficiency in the utilization of solar energy lies in its incapability in absorbing visible lights and also the high recombination rate of photo-excited species in photocatalysts. In addition, difficulties in the separation of fluids from micro- or nano-scale catalysts in large scale systems substantially impact cost efficiency in practice. In this thesis, strategies are explored which address these issues in order to improve the feasibility of solar photocatalysis. Two branches of photocatalytic transition metal-oxide semiconductor materials are investigated, namely bismuth-based and silver-based multi-phase heterogeneous photocatalysts. This research is focused on the design of visible-light-active metal-oxide photocatalysts to increase the absorption of visible light and to decrease the rates of electron-hole recombination, resulting in a high photocatalytic efficiency in regards to the degradation of organic pollutants. BiVO4 powder, synthesized from freshly made potassium metavanadate was prepared via hydrothermal treatment, characterized and experimentally investigated for the degradation of rhodamine B under visible light irradiation. The crystal structures and the specific surface areas of the composites, based on BiVO4 single phase crystal structures, are discussed. A multi-phase silver species (Ag2O/Ag3VO4/Ag4V2O7) photocatalyst was synthesized by adjusting the molar ratio of silver to vanadium (Ag to V) via hydrothermal method. The stabilities of as-prepared silver species composites regarding crystal structural changes due to photocatalytic reactions are investigated. Multi-phase silver species composites assisted with graphene oxide (GO-Ag2O/Ag3VO4/AgVO3) were synthesized at room temperature, and exhibited high visible-light photocatalytic activities regarding the degradation of model organic pollutants. The effect of graphene oxide addition on the photoactivity and on the photocorrosion of silver species composites under VLI is explored. The synergistic roles of each individual phase incorporated into the multi-phase composites are discussed regarding the photocatalytic performance.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / South Africa is facing a problem of many municipal waste water treatment works (WWTW) not working efficiently. The environmental impacts of poorly treated effluents on receiving water bodies have required special attention from researchers. In this study, the relationships between water quality variables in the Baths River in the Western Cape province of South Africa were evaluated upstream, at the source and downstream of the Caledon wastewater treatment works between March 2013 to March 2016. The assumption has been tested that water quality is deteriorating downstream of the Caledon Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) discharge point in the Baths River and are affected by this change in water quality. / 2023

No description available.

The phenomenon of rapid algal blooms in response to nutrient overloads has been adapted to treat synthetic domestic wastewater. Various algal consortia collected from several eutrophied water bodies were subject to high density algal culture (upto 106-107 cells/mL) and screened for rapid algal growth, pollutant removal, nutrient recovery under mixotrophy and auto-flocculation. When tried in laboratory scale algal ponds, these algal consortia showed growth rates between 0.15 and 1.07 d-1. Results indicate that Chlorella occurred frequently among most consortia although not always the largest in number. While individual algal species varied in growth rates among these consortia, the log phase for most of these algae lasted 4-5 d after which the algal species began to flocculate between day 5-8 at different rates. The flocculation stage lasted between Day 6-8 wherein about 65% cells flocculated during monsoon and over 90% in winter. Although over 90% removal of N and 80% removal of P occurred in this period, the net N and P harvested as flocculated algae ranged from ~30-50% and ~40-70%, respectively. A consortia approach, wherein algal cells auto-flocculate after reaching a high cell density and nutrient removal provides an easy, low energy and sustainable approach to simultaneous wastewater treatment as well as energy and nutrient recovery from domestic wastewaters.