Outlines

2.1 Physical, Chemical and Bacteriological

Characteristic of Wastewater
2.2 Measurement of Concentration of Contaminants
in Wastewater
2.3 Mathematical Model for the BOD Curve
 Characteristics needed to design WWT plant

 The design of a wastewater treatment plant requires knowledge of its

characteristics:
 Quantity or flow rate of wastewater.
• Required to determine the size of the various unit operations and unit
processes
 Quality of raw wastewater.
• Required to determine types of unit operations and processes to be
used.
• Required to evaluate effectiveness/performance of implemented unit
operations and processes.
• Required to determine suitability of final effluent for disposal or
reuse.
Some contaminants in Waste Water
Suspended solids : lead to the development of sludge deposits and
anaerobic conditions
Pathogens: cause diseases
Nutrients : essential for growth (N, P ,…).
Refractory organics: resist conventional methods of wastewater
treatment.
Heavy metals : may have to be removed if the wastewater is to be
reused.
Dissolved inorganic solids (calcium, sodium, and sulfate): may
have to be removed if the wastewater is to be reused.
Therefore, Wastewater should be collected and treated before its
ultimate disposal in order to:
Reduce spread of communicable diseases .
Prevent surface and ground water pollution.
Summery of Waste Water Contaminants
 CHARACTERISTICS OF WASTE WATER
Waste Water Characteristics generally categorized in three
groups:
1.Physical Characteristics
2. Chemical Characteristics
3. Biological Characteristics
Physical
 Related to the quality of water for domestic use.
 Associated with the appearance of water
Eg. Color, turbidity, temperature, taste and odor.
Chemical
 Sometimes evidenced by their observed reactions (comparative
performance of hard & soft waters in laundering)
 Most often, differences are not visible.
Microbiology
 Very important in their relation to public health
 Significant in modifying the physical and chemical characteristic of

water
 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Temperature
The temperature of water is a very important parameter because of
its effect on
- Chemical reactions and reaction rates in treatment process.
- Aquatic life.
 Temperature of wastewater is commonly higher than that of
water supply because of the addition of warm water from
households and industrial plants.
 Wide variation in the wastewater temperature indicates heated or
cooled discharges.
 Decreased temperatures after a snowmelt or rainfall may indicate
serious infiltration.
 Changes in wastewater temperatures affect the settling rates,
dissolved oxygen levels, and biological action.
 The temperature of wastewater becomes extremely important in
certain wastewater unit operations such as sedimentation tanks
and recirculating filters.
 Color
 Color of industrial wastewater varies according to the type of
industry.
 Most colored matter is in a dissolved state.
 The color of wastewater containing dissolved oxygen (DO) is
normally gray.
 Black-colored wastewater usually accompanied by foul odors,
containing little or no DO, is said to be septic.
Color of sewage can be detected by naked eye, and it indicates
the freshness of the sewage.
If the color is gray, yellowish or light brown, it indicates fresh
sewage;
If the color is black or dark brown, it indicates stale and septic
sewage
Color of sewage sometimes indicates the source of sewage.
Odor
Odor is produced by gas production due to the decomposition of
organic matter or by substances added to the wastewater.
Fresh sewage is practically odorless.
 Sewage starts to become stale when its dissolved oxygen is
exhausted which starts after three to four hours of production
 Solids
Sewage is normally 99.9% water and 0.05-0.1% solids, which is
the cause of turbidity.
 There are different types of solids in sewage. The most common
types are:
 Dissolved,
 Suspended,
 Settleable,
Floatable,
 Colloidal,
 Organic, and
 Inorganic solids.
Solids
• sewage only contains about 0.05 to 0.1 percent solids
• Solids present in sewage may be in any of the 4 forms:
– suspended solids: solids which remain floating in
sewage.
– dissolved solids: remain dissolved in sewage just as
salt in water
– colloidal solids: are finely divided solids remaining
either in solution or in suspension. Colloidal particles
are often removed in biological treatment units/
chemical treatment followed by sedimentation.
– settleable solids: solid matter which settles out.
– When suspended solids float, they are called Floatable
Solids or Scum.
As a general rule, the presence of inorganic solids in sewage is
not harmful. They require only mechanical appliances for their
removal in the treatment plant.
On the other hand, suspended and dissolved organic solids are
responsible for creating nuisance, if disposed of, untreated.
The proportion of these different types of solids is
generally found as:
Inorganic matter consists of minerals and salts, like:
sand, gravel, debris, dissolved salts, chlorides,
sulphates, etc.
Organic matter consists of:
I. Carbohydrates such as cellulose, cotton, fiber, starch,
sugar, etc.
II. Fats and oils received from kitchens, laundries, garages,
shops, etc.
III. Nitrogenous compounds like proteins and their
decomposed products, including wastes from animals, urea,
fatty acids, hydrocarbons, etc.
Sludge Volume Index(SVI)
Density
 Almost the same density of water when the wastewater doesn't
include significant amount of industrial waste.
Turbidity
 It's a measure of the light –transmitting properties of water.
This is property is imparted by the wastes found in the
sewage
Chemical Characteristics
pH
• is a method of expressing the acid condition of the WW.
• For proper treatment, wastewater pH should normally be in the
range of 6.5 to 9.0.
• the fresh sewage is generally alkaline in nature ( pH > 7); but as
time passes, its pH tends to fall due to production of acids by
bacterial action in anaerobic or nitrification processes.
Measurement of Concentration of Contaminants in Wastewater

Contaminants in wastewaters are usually a

complex mixture of organic and inorganic
compounds.
 It is usually impractical, if not nearly impossible to obtain
complete chemical analysis of most wastewaters.
 However, since it is comparatively easy to measure the
amount of oxygen used by the bacteria as they oxidize the
wastewater, the concentration of organic matter in the
wastewater can easily be expressed in terms of the amount of
oxygen required for its oxidation. The most important
standard methods for analysis of organic contaminants are:
 Theoretical oxygen (ThOD)
 If the chemical formula of the organic matter existing in the WW is known th
ThOD may be computed as the amount of oxygen needed to oxidize the organ
carbon to carbon dioxide and a other end products.

This is the theoretical amount of oxygen required to oxidize the organic fraction of the wastewater
completely to carbon dioxide and water. The equation for the total oxidation of, say, glucose is:

With C = 12, H = 1 and O = 16, C6H12O6 is 180 and 6O2 is 192; we can thus calculate that the
192
ThOD of, for example, a 300 mg/l solution of glucose is 180
∗ 300 = 321 mg/l. Because
wastewater is so complex in nature its ThOD cannot be calculated, but in practice it is
approximated by the chemical oxygen demand.
 Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)
 BOD is the amount of oxygen that is consumed by bacteria to
aerobically oxidize the biodegradable organic compounds of sewage
for five days at 20C. Hence it is called BOD5;
 BOD is used as an indirect measure of biologically degradable
material present in wastewater;
 Having a safe BOD level in wastewater is essential to producing
quality effluent.
• The greater the BOD, the more rapidly oxygen is depleted in the
water body.
• The consequences of high BOD are the same as those for low DO:
– aquatic organisms become stressed, suffocate, and die.
 Biochemical Oxygen Demand (Contd…)
The discharge of wastes with high levels of BOD can cause water
quality problems such as severe dissolved oxygen depletion and fish
kills in receiving water bodies;
 Natural sources of BOD include organic material from decaying
plants and animal wastes;
Human sources of BOD includes feces, urine, detergents, fats, oils
and grease, etc.
 The BOD test is widely used to determine the pollution strength of
domestic and industrial wastewaters in terms of the oxygen that is
required for decomposition of the waste;
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (Contd…)
BOD is determined in laboratory by mixing or diluting a
known volume of sample of sewage with a known volume of
aerated pure water and then calculating the DO of the diluted
sample. The diluted sample is then incubated in dark for 5 days
at 20C and its DO is again measured.

𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒

Where 𝐷𝐹 =
Volume of diluted sample
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (Contd…)
Example
10 mL of a wastewater sample are placed in a 300-mL
BOD bottle. The initial DO of the sample is 8.5 mg/L.
The DO is 3 mg/L after 5 days. What is the 5-day BOD?
 Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)
Laboratory methods commonly used today to measure gross amounts of organic matter
in wastewater include the determination of
A)Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD):
Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is a measure of the amount of
oxygen that bacteria will consume while decomposing organic matter
found in the waste water under aerobic conditions.
Biochemical oxygen demand is determined by incubating a sealed
sample of waste water for five days and measuring the loss of oxygen
from the beginning to the end of the test---- 5-day BOD (BOD5).
 BOD CONTD-------
 The BOD of a diluted sample is calculated by:
 BOD = (DOi-DOf )/ P
Where, DO1 – dissolved oxygen of the diluted sample immediately after preparation, mg/l
DO2 – dissolved oxygen of the diluted sample after 5 day incubation at 20ºc, mg/l
DOS1 – dissolved oxygen of seed control before incubation, mg/l
DOS1 – dissolved oxygen of seed control after incubation, mg/l
f – fraction of seeded dilution water volume in sample to volume of seeded dilution
water in seed control
P – fraction of wastewater sample volume to total combined volume

 The BOD5 only represents the oxygen consumed in 5 days.

The total BOD, or BOD for any other time, can be
determined by
 Lt=Loe-kt
 The difference between the value Lo and Lt is the oxygen
equivalent consumed or BOD exerted. Mathematically,
yt=Lo-Lt
 =Lo-Loe-kt
 yt= Lo(1-e-kt)
 Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)
 It oxidizes organic matter through a reaction with a mixture of
chromic and sulfuric acid at high temperatures.
 The COD of wastewater is, in general, higher than that of the
BOD because more compounds can be chemically oxidized
than can be biologically oxidized.
 The COD of wastewater is, in general, higher than that of the
BOD because more compounds can be chemically oxidized
than can be biologically oxidized.
 This can be very useful because COD can be determined in
3 hours, compared with 5 days for the BOD5.
 COD is typically measured in mg/L, which indicates oxygen consumed
per liter of solution.
Are BOD and COD of a wastewater sample equal?
NO, COD is always greater than BOD.
Because while COD test gives the total organic compounds (both
biologically active and inactive) found in the sewage, BOD tells the
concentration of biodegradable or biologically active organic
compounds.
 Chloride Content
Derived from the kitchen wastes, human feces, and urinary discharges,
etc.
The normal chloride content of domestic sewage is 120 mg/lit.
When the chloride content of sewage is found to be higher, it indicates
the presence of industrial wastes or infiltration of sea water, thereby
indicating sewage strength.
Nitrogen Content
 The presence of nitrogen in sewage indicates the presence of organic matter and
may occur in one or more of the following forms:
 Free ammonia
 Nitrites
 Nitrates
 The free ammonia indicates the very first stage of decomposition of organic matter,
thus indicating recently staled sewage.
 Presence of nitrites indicate the presence of partly decomposed (not fully oxidized)
organic matter and shows incomplete treatment of organic wastes.
 The presence of nitrates indicate the presence of fully oxidized organic matter and
show well oxidized and treated sewage.
Phosphorus
is essential to biological activity and must be
present in at least minimum quantities or
secondary treatment processes will not perform.
Excessive amounts can cause stream damage and
excessive algal growth.
Dissolved Oxygen (DO)
• DO is very important for aquatic life like fish,…
• the treated sewage should ensure at least 4ppm of
DO in it before discharging it to river stream;
• otherwise, fish are likely to be killed, creating
nuisance near the vicinity of disposal.
• very fresh sewage contains some DO, which is soon
depleted by aerobic decomposition.
 Biological Characteristics (Contd…)
 are due to the presence of bacteria and other living
microorganisms, such as algae, fungi, protozoa, etc.
 Most of the vast number of bacteria present in sewage
is harmless non-pathogenic bacteria.
 They are useful and helpful in bringing oxidation and
decomposition of sewage.
Knowledge of the biological characteristics of wastewater helps to
know:
 The principal groups of micro-organisms found in surface water
and wastewater as well as those responsible for biological
treatment.
 The pathogenic organisms found in wastewater
 The organisms used as indicators of pollution & their
significance
 The methods used to enumerate the indicator organisms
 The methods used to evaluate the toxicity of treated
wastewaters
The Engineer should know:-
1. The principal groups of microorganisms found in wastewater.
2. The pathogenic organisms.
3. Indicator organisms (indicate the presence of pathogens).
4. The methods used to amount the microorganisms.
5. The methods to evaluate the toxicity of treated wastewater