Dissolved Oxygen Set Point Research Articles

Impact of carbon to nitrogen ratio and aeration regime on mainstream deammonification.

While deammonification of high-strength wastewater in the sludge line of sewage treatment plants has become well established, the potential cost savings spur the development of this technology for mainstream applications. This study aimed at identifying the effect of aeration and organic carbon on the deammonification process. Two 10 L sequencing bath reactors with different aeration frequencies were operated at 25°C. Real wastewater effluents from chemically enhanced primary treatment and high-rate activated sludge process were fed into the reactors with biodegradable chemical oxygen demand/nitrogen (bCOD/N) of 2.0 and 0.6, respectively. It was found that shorter aerobic solids retention time (SRT) and higher aeration frequency gave more advantages for aerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AerAOB) than nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) in the system. From the kinetics study, it is shown that the affinity for oxygen is higher for NOB than for AerAOB, and higher dissolved oxygen set-point could decrease the affinity of both AerAOB and NOB communities. After 514 days of operation, it was concluded that lower organic carbon levels enhanced the activity of anoxic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB) over denitrifiers. As a result, the contribution of AnAOB to nitrogen removal increased from 40 to 70%. Overall, a reasonably good total removal efficiency of 66% was reached under a low bCOD/N ratio of 2.0 after adaptation.

Deammonification for digester supernatant pretreated with thermal hydrolysis: overcoming inhibition through process optimization.

The thermal hydrolysis process (THP) has been proven to be an excellent pretreatment step for an anaerobic digester (AD), increasing biogas yield and decreasing sludge disposal. The goal of this work was to optimize deammonification for efficient nitrogen removal despite the inhibition effects caused by the organics present in the THP-AD sludge filtrate (digestate). Two sequencing batch reactors were studied treating conventional digestate and THP-AD digestate, respectively. Improved process control based on higher dissolved oxygen set-point (1mgO2/L) and longer aeration times could achieve successful treatment of THP-AD digestate. This increased set-point could overcome the inhibition effect on aerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AerAOB), potentially caused by particulate and colloidal organics. Moreover, based on the mass balance, anoxic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB) contribution to the total nitrogen removal decreased from 97±1% for conventional to 72±5% for THP-AD digestate treatment, but remained stable by selective AnAOB retention using a vibrating screen. Overall, similar total nitrogen removal rates of 520±28mgN/L/day at a loading rate of 600mgN/L/day were achieved in the THP-AD reactor compared to the conventional digestate treatment operating at low dissolved oxygen (DO) (0.38±0.10mgO2/L).

Aeration length phase control using on-line ammonia and dissolved oxygen feedback control at Choutrana II WWTP

The purpose of this work was to study the impact of aeration control strategy using on-line ammonia and dissolved oxygen feedback control on energy consumption in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant. Eight identical oxidation ditches treating the same effluent and operated with conventional control aeration strategy with distinct nitrification and denitrification phases were examined. Each oxidation ditch was periodically aerated according to a fixed phase cycle and phase lengths are controlled by constant dissolved oxygen (DO) set points. To improve the plant’s energy efficiency, a new control strategy has been performed by a full-scale test to control the phase lengths by variable DO set points determined by criteria functions. Knowing the phase lengths provides flexibility to achieve easily nitrogen treatment with nitrification and dentrification processes and treatment objectives. In the test strategy, each zone was separately controlled and the DO set points were changed to avoid unnecessarily high DO levels. The results showed that the ammonium and DO feedback control method can reduce about 30% of the total airflow and lead to a significant aeration energy savings. The plant could preserve treatment efficiency, enhance simultaneous nitrification–denitrification process, and produce excellent effluent quality. A Ammonia and DO feedback controller system was implemented and compared with the actual DO control system.

Design of a generalized predictive controller for a biological wastewater treatment plant.

This paper presents a generalized predictive control (GPC) technique to regulate the activated sludge process found in a bioreactor used in wastewater treatment. The control strategy can track dissolved oxygen setpoint changes quickly, adapting to the system uncertainties and disturbances. Tests occur on an Activated Sludge Model No. 1 benchmark of an activated sludge process. A T filter added to the GPC framework results in an effective control strategy in the presence of coloured measurement noise. This work also suggests how a constraint on the measured variable can be added as a penalty term to the GPC framework which leads to improved control of the dissolved oxygen concentration in the presence of dynamic input disturbance.

Does carbon reduction increase sustainability? A study in wastewater treatment

This study investigates the relationships between carbon reduction and sustainability in the context of wastewater treatment, focussing on the impacts of control adjustments, and demonstrates that reducing energy use and/or increasing energy recovery to reduce net energy can be detrimental to sustainability.Factorial sampling is used to derive 315 control options, containing two different control strategies and a range of sludge wastage flow rates and dissolved oxygen setpoints, for evaluation. For each, sustainability indicators including operational costs, net energy and multiple environmental performance measures are calculated. This enables identification of trade-offs between different components of sustainability which must be considered before implementing energy reduction measures. In particular, it is found that the impacts of energy reduction measures on sludge production and nitrogen removal must be considered, as these are worsened in the lowest energy solutions.It also demonstrates that a sufficiently large range of indicators need to be assessed to capture trade-offs present within the environmental component of sustainability. This is because no solutions provided a move towards sustainability with respect to every indicator. Lastly, it is highlighted that improving the energy balance (as may be considered an approach to achieving carbon reduction) is not a reliable means of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions.

Optimization of a mainstream nitritation-denitritation process and anammox polishing.

This paper deals with an almost 1-year long pilot study of a nitritation-denitritation process that was followed by anammox polishing. The pilot plant treated real municipal wastewater at ambient temperatures. The effluent of high-rate activated sludge process (hydraulic retention time, HRT=30 min, solids retention time=0.25 d) was fed to the pilot plant described in this paper, where a constant temperature of 23 °C was maintained. The nitritation-denitritation process was operated to promote nitrite oxidizing bacteria out-selection in an intermittently aerated reactor. The intermittent aeration pattern was controlled using a strategy based on effluent ammonia and nitrate+nitrite concentrations. The unique feature of this aeration control was that fixed dissolved oxygen set-point was used and the length of aerobic and anoxic durations were changed based on the effluent ammonia and nitrate+nitrite concentrations. The anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) bacteria were adapted in mainstream conditions by allowing the growth on the moving bed bioreactor plastic media in a fully anoxic reactor. The total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) removal performance of the entire system was 75±15% during the study at a modest influent chemical oxygen demand (COD)/NH4+-N ratio of 8.9±1.8 within the HRT range of 3.1-9.4 h. Anammox polishing contributed 11% of overall TIN removal. Therefore, this pilot-scale study demonstrates that application of the proposed nitritation-denitritation system followed by anammox polishing is capable of relatively high nitrogen removal without supplemental carbon and alkalinity at a low HRT.

Model-based control structure design of a full-scale WWTP under the retrofitting process.

The anoxic-oxic (A/O) municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Manresa (Catalonia, Spain) was studied for a possible conversion to an anaerobic/anoxic/oxic (A2/O) configuration to promote enhanced biological phosphorus removal. The control structure had to be redesigned to satisfy the new necessity to control phosphorus concentration, besides ammonium and nitrate concentrations (main pollutant concentrations). Thereby, decentralized control structures with proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers and centralized control structures with model-predictive controllers (MPC) were designed and tested. All the designed control structures had their performance systematically tested regarding effluent quality and operating costs. The centralized control structure, A2/O-3-MPC, achieved the lowest operating costs with the best effluent quality using the A2/O plant configuration for the Manresa WWTP. The controlled variables used in this control structure were ammonium in the effluent, nitrate at the end of the anoxic zone and phosphate at the end of the anaerobic zone, while the manipulated variables were the internal and external recycle flow rates and the dissolved oxygen setpoint in the aerobic reactors.

Applying variable dissolved oxygen set point in a two level hierarchical control structure to a wastewater treatment process

This paper presents a two-level hierarchical control structure for biological wastewater treatment plants, with the goal of improving effluent quality and reducing operational costs. The Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1 is used as working scenario. The hierarchical structure allows to adjust the dissolved oxygen in the fifth tank (SO,5) according with the working conditions, instead of keeping it in a fixed value. Model Predictive Control (MPC) with inlet flow rate feedforward control (MPC+FF) is proposed for the lower level to control nitrate nitrogen concentration of the second tank and SO,5. MPC, Affine Function and fuzzy controller are tested for the higher level to adjust the SO,5 set point of the lower level based on the ammonium and ammonia nitrogen concentration in the fifth tank. Modifying the tuning parameters of the higher level, a tuning region is determined, in which the effluent quality and operational costs are simultaneously improved.

Fuzzy Control and Model Predictive Control Configurations for Effluent Violations Removal in Wastewater Treatment Plants

In this paper the following new control objectives for biological wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been established: to eliminate violations of total nitrogen in the effluent (Ntot,e) or ammonium and ammonia nitrogen concentration (NH) in the effluent (NHe) and at the same time handle the customary requirements of improving effluent quality and reducing operational costs. The Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1 (BSM1) is used for evaluation, and the control is based on Model Predicitive Control (MPC) and fuzzy logic. To improve effluent quality and to reduce operational costs, a hierarchical control structure is implemented to regulate the dissolved oxygen (DO) on the three aerated tanks. The high level of this hierarchical structure is developed with a fuzzy controller that adapts the DO set points of the low level based on the NH concentration in the fifth tank (NH5). The low level is composed of three MPC controllers with feedforward control (MPC + FF). For avoiding violations of Ntot,e, a second fuzzy controller is used to manipulate the external carbon flow rate in the first tank (qEC1) based on nitrate nitrogen in the fifth tank (NO5) plus NH5. For avoiding violations of NHe, a third fuzzy controller is applied to manipulate the internal recirculation flow rate (Qrin) based on NH5 and NH in the influent. Simulation results show the benefit of the proposed approach.

Compensation Control of Dissolved Oxygen in an Activated Sludge System via Hybrid Neuro Fuzzy Technique

Effective treatment of wastewater relies on a dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration level. Insufficient supply of the DO worsen the quality of the effluent (treated water) whereas too much high dissolved oxygen level maximizes energy consumption and cost. Therefore, DO control is highly crucial for economic, performance improvement as well as safety reasons. However, nonlinearities, influent fluctuations together with the time varying parameters of the system make DO control very difficult using classical control techniques. This paper presents compensation control of dissolved oxygen in the system based on hybrid neuro fuzzy technique. The performance of the proposed control algorithm is demonstrated by set-point tracking. For comparison a PID controller tuned using Zeigler-Nicholas method was used. The simulation results indicate that the proposed strategy is quite effective by tracking well the DO set-point trajectories. This kind of control strategy can be applied to real wastewater treatment system.

Modeling the nutrient removal process in aerobic granular sludge system by coupling the reactor- and granule-scale models.

We developed a model for nutrient removal in an aerobic granular sludge system. This model can quantitatively describe the start-up of the system by coupling a model for studying the population dynamics of the granules in the reactor (reactor-scale model) and a model for studying the microbial community structure in the granules (granule-scale model). The reactor-scale model is used for simulation for 10 days from the start, during which the granule size is relatively small; the granule-scale model is used after Day 10. The present approach proposes the output data of the reactor-scale model after 10 days as initial conditions for the granule-scale model. The constructed model satisfactorily describes experimental data in various spatial and temporal scales, which were obtained in this study by performing the anaerobic-aerobic-anoxic cycles using a sequencing batch reactor. Simulations using this model quantitatively predicted that the stability of nutrient removal process depended largely on the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, and the DO setpoint adaptation could improve the nutrient removal performance.

Towards integrated operation of membrane bioreactors: Effects of aeration on biological and filtration performance

Two experimental studies evaluated the effect of aerobic and membrane aeration changes on sludge properties, biological nutrient removal and filtration processes in a pilot plant membrane bioreactor. The optimal operating conditions were found at an aerobic dissolved oxygen set-point (DO) of 0.5mgO2L−1 and a membrane specific aeration demand (SADm) of 1mh−1, where membrane aeration can be used for nitrification. Under these conditions, a total flow reduction of 42% was achieved (75% energy reduction) without compromising nutrient removal efficiencies, maintaining sludge characteristics and controlled filtration. Below these optimal operating conditions, the nutrient removal efficiency was reduced, increasing 20% for soluble microbial products, 14% for capillarity suction time and reducing a 15% for filterability. Below this DO set-point, fouling increased with a transmembrane pressure 75% higher. SADm below 1mh−1 doubled the values of transmembrane pressure, without recovery after achieving the initial conditions.

하수처리장의 포기조 최적 DO 농도 산정 및 공기송풍량 자동제어를 통한 에너지 절감 효과 도출

생물학적 하수처리공정에서 안정적인 방류수질 확보와 처리 비용을 적게 하는 것은 매우 중요하다. 하지만 유입수 유량 및 성분 농도의 변화와 미생물의 비선형적인 동특성, 기타 환경 요인에 의해서 최적의 운전 제어를 하기가 쉽지 않기 때문에, 기존의 하수처리장에서는 필요한 양 이상의 폭기 및 화학물질을 과량 주입하는 방법 등을 사용하였다. 본 연구에서는 포기조에서 미생물에 필요한 용존산 소농도를 유지함과 동시에 과폭기로 인한 전력 비용을 감소할 수 있는 최적 제어 방법을 제안하였다. 최적 제어를 위하여 실시간 미생물 호흡률 측정기(Oxygen uptake rate, OUR)을 이용하여 측정하였고, 실시간 호흡률 측정값을 바탕으로 현재 미생물에 필요한 최적 DO 농도를 제안하였으며, 이에 따라 공기송풍기가 자동제어될 수 있도록 구성하였다. 최적 제어 방법을 통하여 하수처리장 포기조의 공기 송풍량에 소요되는 전력비용을 절감할 수 있었다. It is important to keep stable effluent water quality and minimize operation cost in biological wastewater treatment plant. However, the optimal operation is difficult because of the change of influent flow rate and concentrations, the nonlinear dynamics of microbiology growth rate and other environmental factors. Therefore, many wastewater treatment plants are operated for much more redundant oxygen or chemical dosing than the necessary. In this study, the optimal control scheme for dissolved oxygen (DO) is suggested to prevent over-aeration and the reduction of the electric cost in plant operation while maintaining the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration for the metabolism of microorganisms in oxic reactor. For optimal control, The oxygen uptake rate (OUR) is realtime measured for the identification of influent characterization and the identification of microorganisms' oxygen requirement in oxic reactor. Optimal DO seT-Point needed for the microorganism is suggested based on real time measurement of oxygen uptake of microorganism and the control of air blower. Therefore, both stable effluent quality and minimization of electric cost are satisfied with a suggested optimal setpoint decision system by providing the necessary oxygen supply requirement to the microorganisms coping with the variations of influent loading.

Enhanced polyhydroxyalkanoate production from organic wastes via process control

This work explores the use of a model-based control scheme to enhance the productivity of polyhroxyalkanoate (PHA) production in a mixed culture two-stage system fed with synthetic wastewater. The controller supplies pulses of substrate while regulating the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration and uses the data to fit a dynamic mathematical model, which in turn is used to predict the time until the next pulse addition. Experiments in a bench scale system first determined the optimal DO set-point and initial substrate concentration. Then the proposed feedback control strategy was compared with a simpler empiric algorithm. The results show that a substrate conversion rate of 1.370±0.598mgPHA/mgCOD/d was achieved. The proposed strategy can also indicate when to stop the accumulation of PHA upon saturation, which occurred with a PHA content of 71.0±7.2wt.%.

Implications of full-scale implementation of an anammox-based process as post-treatment of a municipal anaerobic sludge digester operated with co-digestion

The feasibility of treating the supernatant of a municipal sludge digester supplemented with co-substrates by means of an anammox-based process (ELAN(®)) was tested in Guillarei (NW of Spain). Ammonia concentration measured in the supernatant of the sludge digester varied in the range 800-1,500 g N/m(3) due to the fact that the sludge produced in the plant was co-digested with wastes coming from surrounding food industries. Treating this supernatant in the ELAN(®) reactor, nitrogen removal rates up to 1.1 kg N/(m(3) d) were reached in experiments run in a pilot plant reactor operated in batch mode. No nitrite oxidation was registered after several months of operation despite the average dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations being 1.5 g O2/m(3) and the temperature reaching values as low as 18 °C. By keeping the DO set point at 1-2 g O2/m(3) and tuning the hydraulic retention time, the stability of the process was guaranteed and the presence of co-substrates in the anaerobic digester did not affect negatively the operation of the autotrophic nitrogen removal process. Due to the success of the pilot plant experiment, an upscale of the process to full scale is proposed. Mass balances applied to Guillarei wastewater treatment plant revealed that in the main stream line the average denitrification rate calculated with the data of year 2011 was 226 kg N/d. Since the nitrogen removal efficiency is limited by the amount of readily biodegradable organic matter available to carry out denitrification in the water line, the implementation of an anammox-based process to treat the supernatant seems the best option to improve the effluent quality in terms of nitrogen content. The nitrogen removal rate in the sludge line would be 30 times higher than the one in the water line. The implementation of the process would improve the energetic balance and the nitrogen removal performance of the plant.

A novel control strategy for enhancing biological N-removal in a granular sequencing batch reactor: A model-based study

Biological nitrogen removal in aerobic granular sequencing batch reactors is sensitively affected by process conditions (e.g. dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, nitrogen loading rate (NLR), influent C/N ratio, among others). The variation of one of these process conditions affects the others, because often they are tightly linked. These interrelationships are a drawback for the experimental assessment of the target domain of process conditions required to enhance N-removal. Here, we have developed a model to determine the guidelines to design an automatic control strategy with the final aim of enhancing biological N-removal in a granular sequencing batch reactor. The model was first calibrated with experimental data from a granular sequencing batch reactor treating swine wastewater. Specific simulations were designed to elucidate the effect of DO concentration (0.5–8mgO2L−1), granule size (0.5–3.5mm), influent C/N ratio (4–10gO2g−1N) and NLR (0.41–0.82gNL−1d−1) on the nitrification–denitrification efficiency. Simulation results showed that, in general, high N-removal efficiencies (from 70% to 85%) could be obtained only setting the appropriate DO concentration. That appropriate DO concentration could be easily found based on effluent ammonium concentration. Those results were used to propose a control strategy to enhance N-removal efficiencies. The control strategy was based on a closed DO loop with variable DO set-point. The DO set-point was established at a constant value for the whole cycle (i.e. once per cycle), based on the on-line measurement of ammonium concentration at the end of the previous cycle.

Development of a novel electrochemical system for oxygen control (ESOC) to examine dissolved oxygen inhibition on algal activity

The development of an Electrochemical System for Oxygen Control (ESOC) for examining algal photosynthetic activity as a function of dissolved oxygen (DO) is outlined. The main innovation of the tool is coulombic titration in order to balance the electrochemical reduction of oxygen with the oxygen input to achieve a steady DO set-point. ESOC allows quantification of algal oxygen production whilst simultaneously maintaining a desired DO concentration. The tool was validated abiotically by comparison with a mass transfer approach for quantifying oxygenation. It was then applied to quantify oxygen inhibition of algal activity. Five experiments, using an enriched culture of Scenedesmus sp. as the inoculum, are presented. For each experiment, ESOC was used to quantify algal activity at a series of DO set-points. In all experiments substantial oxygen inhibition was observed at DO >30 mgO2 L-1. Inhibition was shown to fit a Hill inhibition model, with a common Hill coefficient of 0.22±0.07 L mg-1 and common log10 CI50 of 27.2±0.7 mg L-1. This is the first time that the oxygen inhibition kinetic parameters have been quantified under controlled DO conditions.

The optimal dissolved oxygen profile in a nitrifying activated sludge process – comparisons with ammonium feedback control

Ammonium feedback control is increasingly used to determine the dissolved oxygen (DO) set-point in aerated activated sludge processes for nitrogen removal. This study compares proportional-integral (PI) ammonium feedback control with a DO profile created from a mathematical minimisation of the daily air flow rate. All simulated scenarios are set to reach the same treatment level of ammonium, based on a daily average concentration. The influent includes daily variations only and the model has three aerated zones. Comparisons are made at different plant loads and DO concentrations, and the placement of the ammonium sensor is investigated. The results show that ammonium PI control can achieve the best performance if the DO set-point is limited at a maximum value and with little integral action in the controller. Compared with constant DO control the best-performing ammonium controller can achieve 1-3.5% savings in the air flow rate, while the optimal solution can achieve a 3-7% saving. Energy savings are larger when operating at higher DO concentrations.

Closed-loop control of ammonium concentration in nitritation: Convenient for reactor operation but also for modeling

A mathematical biofilm model was developed to describe nitritation in aerobic granular reactor operating in continuous mode. The model includes the automatic closed-loop control of ammonium concentration in the effluent. This is integrated in a ratio control strategy to maintain the proportion between the dissolved oxygen (DO) and the total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) concentrations in the reactor effluent at a desired value. The model was validated with a large set of experimental results previously reported in the literature. The model was used to study the effect of DO and TAN setpoints on the achievement of full nitritation, as well as to establish the appropriate required range of the DO/TAN concentration ratio to be applied. Nitritation at 20°C was tested experimentally and simulated with the model. Additionally, the importance of controlling the TAN concentration was highlighted with different scenarios, in which periodic disturbances were applied mimicking a poor control situation.

On–off control of aeration time in the simultaneous removal of ammonia and manganese using a biological aerated filter system

The biological aerated filter (BAF) system, a new alternative in drinking water treatment, was designed to remove NH4+–N and Mn2+ simultaneously. This study aimed to control the aeration time in the BAF system for simultaneous NH4+–N and Mn2+ removal to achieve the Malaysian effluent quality regulation for drinking water. The experiment was conducted under four strategies of S1, S2, S3 and S4. The results demonstrated that acceptable levels of NH4+–N and Mn2+ were achieved over a 6h aeration period (S1), producing effluent concentrations of 0.7mg/L (93.2% removal) and 0.08mg/L (79.6% removal), respectively. At the initial treatment of S1 and S2, the dissolved oxygen (DO) level rapidly increased until it reached a saturated concentration (6.8mg/L DO) after 2h period. Automatic on–off aeration time to maintain 3mg/L DO set point (S4) resulted with a good effluent quality of NH4+–N and Mn2+ compared with the 2mg/L DO set point (S3) which did not meet the regulated standard limits. Through the automatic on–off aeration time, the saturated and excessive DO levels in the BAF system can be avoided consequently reduce the wastage of energy and electrical consumption for simultaneous NH4+–N and Mn2+ removal from drinking water treatment.