Synapps - platform for estimating, controlling and optimizing wastewater treatment plants

Abstract

Wastewater generated by the world's vast population is an important source of pollution and can accelerate the loss of biodiversity and impede the achievement of objectives set by the international community regarding the good status of water bodies. In line with the European Union's sustainable development strategy, which foresees the adoption of increasingly demanding environmental control, energy efficiency and rational management of resources measures, a project with high potential for economic valorization is being implemented, focused on design, development and validation in real conditions, to create an innovative platform for estimating, controlling and optimizing wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), called SYNAPPS. Based on the implementation of multiparametric measurement chains and the application of computational intelligence techniques (eg Big Data Analytics, Data Mining and Machine Learning), the SYNAPPS platform should be capable of providing integrated management of the various WWTP treatment processes, ensuring a high environmental, energy and operational performance, and also simplify and relieve the burden of operating this type of technical infrastructure. SYNAPPS is an R&D project approved by PO Centro, through ANI, started in January 2021 and will last for a period of 30 months, with a budget of around one million euros executed under the responsibility of the consortium formed by CTGA, a company with more than 25 years of experience in the operationalization and management of WWTP and leads the consortium, and by the non-business entities of SI&I, namely, ITeCons with relevant experience in the development of automation and dynamic control systems and in the evaluation of energy and environmental performance of processes, and ISR specializes in evaluating the energy performance of complex systems and developing control algorithms based on computational intelligence.