From the largest metropolitan water treatment plant (WTP) or wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) operations to the smallest rural systems, the goals are essentially the same — achieve regulatory compliance and the most efficient results at the lowest practical cost. The most feasible (i.e., affordable) control solutions vary by process, plant size, and budgetary limitations. Here are several high-level guidelines to achieving a common strategy that works across virtually all applications: good data, properly analyzed, yields good results.

Instrumentation is heavily pushed to achieve efficiency, but it only works when you use it correctly – and many utilities don’t.

The City of Marengo, Illinois operates an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant that processes an average volume of 1.8MGD with a maximum capacity of 5.94MGD. In the fall of 2007, the operators of the plant began to observe reduced performance of their liquid-polymer feed system that was in place at the city’s facility. The Dynablend™ liquid-polymer unit was a good fit for the Marengo plant because of its reliability and performance over a wide range of polymers commonly used for sludge processing. Read the full case study to learn more.

Given numerous variables when selecting an aeration blower system for wastewater applications, and equally numerous claims by technology providers, it is not surprising that confusion exists. Worse than confusion is the disappointment that results when a blower technology fails to perform as anticipated — and operating cost and efficiency benefits go unrealized.

Here are some guidelines for everyday care, regular maintenance, and periodic calibration or replacement to assure optimum performance of pH instrumentation.

Faced with increasing costs for controlling hydrogen sulfide in its wastewater collection system, the City of Bakersfield, California commissioned an evaluation of its program in 2019.

Learn how Sewermatics AI extends contractor crew bandwidth to expedite inspections and keep projects on pace.

Since 1857, Mueller Water Products have been helping municipalities increase operational efficiencies, improve customer service and prioritize capital spending. Throughout this time Mueller has played an essential role in the research, development and manufacturing of products and services used in water systems across North America.

The chemistry of optimizing water/wastewater treatment extends far beyond chlorine and oxygen. It also involves synthesizing productive insights from the flood of IT data generated by operational technology (OT) sensors, instruments, and control systems. Here’s how better operational intelligence strategies are helping IT and OT personnel collaborate to make processes more cost-efficient.

For years, the wastewater treatment plant in Villa Mercedes, David City, Panama emitted harsh odors and created a rampant mosquito population, a situation the neighboring residents found impossible to deal with. Treatment at the plant needed improvement to successfully treat up to 4.6 million gallons of wastewater per day, eliminate harsh odors and reduce the mosquito population.

The analysis of Total Organic Carbon (TOC) in seawater can be both challenging and expensive. The concentration of organic carbon in seawater is of considerable interest. The effect this matrix can have on TOC analyzers can lead to rapid consumable turnover, costly maintenance and repairs.

As old gas & oil fields play out, newer methods must be used to extract resources from areas where they are locked in layers of shale. One current technique is known as “fraccing,” in which high pressure water is pumped into the well shaft to “fracture” the rock layers, allowing more natural gas to escape and be collected. However, this technique poses a number of environmental problems, including contamination of water with hydrocarbons, solid particulates, and scale producing ions — making it unsuitable for reuse.

Being able to accurately measure both the quantity and rate of water passing through a water distribution system is crucial to gain an informed understanding of overall efficiency. As such, achieving a measurement that is exact as possible can have a significant impact on key areas. This includes supply planning, maintenance, resource deployment, leakage detection and the overall environment.

Strongly loaded organic industrial waste water, i.e. from sugar- or paper-factories, need to be pre-treated before determining the BOD value.

This application note presents comparative data obtained on influent and effluent wastewater samples using laboratory and on-line TOC analyzers employing the heated sodium persulfate oxidation technique in USEPA-approved methods 415.3 and SM 5310C.

Siemens’ extensive portfolio includes various flow measurement technologies, such as Coriolis, clamp-on ultrasonic, vortex, and differential pressure meters, catering to a wide range of industrial needs.

The Moundsville Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Virginia chooses not to fix a broken blower unit, but rather to correct an outdated approach. The result is a savings of $50-60K a year in energy costs.

In wastewater treatment, aerobic digestion enables plants to increase their capacity by injecting oxygen into the wastewater head space.