Respirometric characterization of a small community wastewater for decentralized biological treatment

Abstract

In comparison to larger plants, decentralized small size wastewater treatment plants (DCWWTP) face more pronounced operational constraints such as high load fluctuations, operation and maintenance problems and increased costs per capita. The scarcity of historical data on the performance of this type of plants is generally associated to largely unattended operation. Thus, it is important to gain adequate information for both performance assessment and process control, at controlled costs and adapted to centralized supervision. For this, the implementation of an expedite framework for performance monitoring and control is proposed, using on-line data obtained with robust instruments and a simplified dynamic model structure. Point, periodical determination of value ranges for some wastewater characteristics and model parameters, using respirometric assays, allows a more robust modeling of the biological treatment process in these DC-WWTP.