Guidelines for the use of online fouling monitoring in tertiary treatment

Various tertiary treatment processes were compared in the OXERAM project, including a polymeric membrane and a microsieve pilot plant which were installed at the Ruhleben WWTP in Berlin and operated for almost two years. To increase the performance of both these processes, pre-treatments with ozonation, coagulation and/or flocculation were tested. In order to optimize the hybrid processes and to develop a control strategy, online monitoring was implemented. After a literature review and lab trials at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) during the project preparation phase, two instruments were recommended. An NS500 device by Nanosight was installed in the UF membrane pilot (pore diameter = 20 nm) influent with sampling every 15 minutes before and after the inline coagulation. The particles between 50 and 1000 nm were analysed to evaluate the impact of the ozonation / coagulation or the coagulation alone on the nanoparticles below 500 nm which are most responsible for fouling. For a better reproducibility and quality of the results, samples were pre-filtered by an online metallic 5 µm filter. Particle analysis by Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) was obtained to give reliable and reproducible information about the concentration and size distributions of the colloidal fraction in the tested treated domestic wastewater. Correlation between the membrane reversible fouling measured with the help of the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) and the concentration of particles between 100 and 200 nm were detected. Online measurements at the pilot-scale indicate that colloid peak concentrations can be compensated for by coagulation with an optimum dose of 8 mg Fe3+/L. Furthermore, a comparison of FeCl3 and PACl demonstrated that the former is more effective in colloid removal in this treated domestic wastewater. Due to the combination of pre-ozonation and subsequent coagulation, a synergy effect was determined as the combined treatments lead to a better particle removal compared to the effect of the single treatments at same dosages of O3 and Fe3+. A combination of 0.5 mg O3/mg DOC0 and 8 mg Fe3+/L leads to a total reduction down to < 5 % of the initial colloid content1. However a direct prediction of irreversible fouling was not possible. This device should be further optimized for its potential to reduce operational costs and lower solid loads and thus fouling on the membrane. A Pamas particle counter device was installed in the microsieve effluent pipe bypass and this measured the particle size distribution continuously by light extinction at a wavelength of 635 nm at 25 mL/min. No pre-treatment was necessary and it was possible to automatically clean the instrument every hour with distilled water or another cleaning solution. Piping and sensor cell maintenance was crucial to improve the quality of the results due to the high potential of the effluent water to post-flocculate. For optimization of the coagulant and flocculant mixing velocity, the particle counter results were more accurate than the turbidity sensor which did not detect any changes in the effluent water quality. The monitoring tool detected the lowest particle concentration for the optimized mixing velocity. However, the particle counter did not provide better information than an online turbidity sensor for other parameters such as the coagulant types or doses. Therefore, while it is recommended to use an online particle counter during the microsieve plant (10 µm) start-up phase to optimize the coagulation and flocculation, for routine controls an online turbidity sensor is sufficient. Moreover turbidity sensors are less demanding in terms of maintenance effort. The project showed that using the turbidity signal to adapt the coagulant dose was very efficient.

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