Sewage and industrial effluent treatment

Abstract

It was hard for the reviewer to guess who may benefit from the book most. Three recipients are listed: consultants, managers, and operators. The consultant will find a cursory overview of technologies quite incomplete in some sections e.g., very limited presentation of anaerobic reactors (which are today universally used for strong industrial wastes) confined only to upflow sludge bed reactor or an incomplete sketch of sludge stabilization. In fact, the book might mislead the consulting engineer to believing that state-of-the-art includes, for example, antiquated 2 m deep rock-filled trickling filters and flat bottom, floating cover anaerobic sludge digesters; both are examples of the 1950s technologies and found obsolete and dysfunctional in a modern treatment plant. There is little critical comparison of the variety of processes available. The book often lists older designs or some that are quickly becoming obsolete because of, for example, unnecessarily high energy consumption (e.g., extended aeration activated sludge); this is listed along more modern designs. The quoting of proprietary equipment (offered under local trade names by British companies), instead of showing the generic principle of operation, is annoying to the North American reader. Some of the calculations and numbers quoted are incorrect or have inconsistent units (e.g., on p. 96, FIM is in units mglmg. d or mg1L). The manager will find an approachable overview of a mixture of municipal and industrial wastewater treatment technologies. He or she will find few cost comparison numbers of options available. Beside description of physicochemical treatment (e.g., metal removal), there is no mention of the specific problems key industries (material industries, processing and manufacturing industries) may have and some of the unique solutions that are used there. Very little of the international experience has been shown in the book. In particular, there is little time devoted to the modern design of plug flow reactors with biological nutrient removal and utilization of primary sludge (fermentation) for volatile acids production to aid the denitrification and phosphorus removal,