Increased performance of secondary clarifiers using dynamic distribution of minimum return sludge rates

Abstract

Most wastewater treatment plants have several secondary clarifiers or even more sets of clarifiers including several secondary clarifiers, and in practice it is a well known problem that equal distribution of the load to the single clarifier (or set of clarifiers) is very difficult—not to say impossible—to obtain. If the problem is neglected, quite a big percentage of the total clarifier capacity—measured as the max. allowed hydraulic load—can be lost. Further, return sludge rates are seldom controlled by any other means than as a (typically too high) percentage of the inlet to the wastewater treatment plant—giving a varying and too low suspended solids concentration in the return sludge, which again can lead to an unnecessary use of polymer in the pre-dewatering of the surplus sludge taken from the return sludge. A control of the return sludge rate divided into two parts - control of the total return sludge flow and control of how the total flow shall be distributed between the secondary clarifiers - is able to solve the mentioned problems. Finally, as shall be demonstrated on full scale wastewater treatment plants, a considerable increase of the hydraulic capacity of the treatment plants can be obtained.