Embracing the Future: Next-Gen Solutions for Wastewater Management

Modern Wastewater Management Challenges

Wastewater treatment and control has become increasingly complex in recent years due to stringent regulations, with the monitoring of key water quality parameters playing a crucial role in identifying emerging or existing problems.

The water industry is rising to both environmental and budgetary challenges to deliver sustainable investments and achieve long-term environmental improvements, which enable natural resilience for the future. Safeguarding water quality for the protection of health, the environment, optimizing performance and extending the lifespan of treatment assets also serves to achieve improved sustained compliance and process control.

Key Water Quality Monitoring Applications of Wastewater 

There are four key wastewater treatment applications where water quality monitoring is essential:

• Sewer systems where wastewater is collected and transported. Water quality parameters are used for identifying pollution, compliance monitoring, combined sewer overflow measurements, detection of untypical discharges and contaminations, odor control, and corrosion damage prevention.
• Influent monitoring for pollution load monitoring and intake protection takes place at the inlet of treatment plants.
• Biological wastewater treatment that monitors aeration, nitrification, de-nitrification and sludge concentration, with Dissolved Oxygen being the most commonly monitored parameter.
• Wastewater effluent where water is cleaned before it leaves the plant. This includes compliance and efficiency monitoring, along with the control of biological treatment for sedimentation, fourth treatment stage and ammonium.

Impacts on Watercourses, Groundwater and Sewers

Industrial manufacturers today have access to leading technologies that reliably and effectively monitor the varied effluent quality parameters and contaminants of concern. So why is the efficacy of a continuous supply of water quality data to a plant's control system vital?

Water discharged as a result of commercial and industrial processes within the food and beverage industry, manufacturing, mining, metal finishing and iron, oil and gas production often contains a range of dissolved and suspended substances. The nature of the contaminants present in industrial wastewater depends on the type of the factory and the industry, but can include chemicals, heavy metals, oils, pesticides, silt, pharmaceuticals and other industrial byproducts.

Water plays an essential role in these facilities and the process water must be purified before it can be discharged into the sewer system or into natural waters. Online monitoring of the water quality allows an ongoing 24-hour process control, which reduces product loss, optimizes the cleaning process, saves on operating costs and meets regulatory requirements. To avoid prosecution and fines for exceeding limit values, wastewater quality must be monitored seamlessly to a standard that allows the effluent to be discharged into a sewer.

Industrial Effluent Water Quality Monitoring

Monitoring key water quality parameters such as COD, BOD, Dissolved Oxygen, Ammonium, Total Suspended Solids, Turbidity, pH, PAA, Chlorine, Residual Sulfite, Nitrate and Nitrite, allows operators to fully understand the quality of the wastewater in the system for optimum management and control. With the addition of a sludge blanket, gravity filter, flow and toxic gas monitoring, Badger Meter offers a suite of solutions designed for wastewater applications.

Full-scale event detection with real-time early warning alarms notifies operators when water quality falls outside of the pre-set measurement parameters, which can be set according to local regulations. Whether plants require individual water quality monitors or multiparameter measurement, our trusted water quality sensors measure parameters essential for determining contamination events in wastewater effluents:

• spectro::lyser V3 – is just one of our Spectrometer probes available for wastewater monitoring. This optical, submersible spectrometer probe offers multiparameter measurement of water quality parameters, organics such as COD and BOD, along with Nitrate and other nutrients. This can be used as a standalone or with the con::cube V3 terminal controller.
• Q46 – this range of real-time, digital monitoring solutions is capable of measuring over 20 water quality parameters including DO, pH, NTU and TSS, with reagent-free options available. These individual monitors are strategically deployed in key locations to create a network of sensors.

Proactive Management of Organics and Nutrient Removal

Industrial effluent is often extreme in its composition, high in acids, solids and other parameters or radically changing temperature. For example, in dairy process plants around 10 million pounds of milk can be processed a day, producing several dairy products like non-fat dry milk, cream, butter and lactose powder. Product loss represents a large cost for dairy processing plants. During cleaning cycles and maintenance, the product is sometimes routed to the drain due to a process change or human intervention. This not only results in the loss of valuable products but also in COD spikes in the sewage system, which may incur increased charges or penalties from the municipality. A real-time method of measuring product losses in the effluent can therefore result in a very short return on investment (ROI).

Trusted monitoring stations that provide continuous data in real-time are an essential component in wastewater treatment — both for the dynamic process control as well as for continuous monitoring of the discharged water. Treatment plants must operate systems that monitor and control harmful pathogens, hazardous chemicals, organics, nutrients, detergents and toxins with leading technology.

Effective Sensor Cleaning for Data Quality

The water quality monitoring range from Badger Meter also offers automatic cleaning options for the sensors, with the ruck::sack and Q-Blast sensor auto-cleaning systems pairing with the spectro::lyser V3 and Q46 to reliably remove fouling that occurs within sensing tanks.

Conclusion

Badger Meter has a long history of designing and delivering trusted wastewater and effluent treatment systems that provide crucial water quality data. From post-consumer, plant influent, industrial wastewater and sewer monitoring through to the effluent channel, our expertise in smart wastewater quality monitoring delivers continuous, proactive and robust monitoring systems for improved performance and efficiency, process optimization, early event detection, compliance assurance and odor control.