The perfect formula for a wastewater treatment plant
October 2014Analytical Instrumentation & Environmental Monitoring
Energy consumption in the biological stage is one of the main cost drivers in wastewater treatment plants. This is mainly due to the oxygen blowers in the aeration process, thus optimisation of this process offers enormous potential for energy and cost savings.
More efficient aeration control
Oxygen blowers are often operated in a time-based manner or using only a simple form of oxygen control. Hence, in many cases the blowers run longer than necessary resulting in wasted energy. Endress+Hauser offers an aeration solution for dynamic control of blower hardware in accordance with the actual load: Liquicontrol.
It optimises operating times for nitrification and de-nitrification processes, which minimises energy consumption and operating costs. Moreover, Liquicontrol ensures accurate and reliable outlet values at all times.
Easy integration into existing plants
As a modular and scalable system, Liquicontrol can also be used for phosphate elimination. Precipitant pumps are controlled based on the actual load, offering significant savings on precipitant costs. Based on a PLC and individual signal interfaces, it is available as a standalone solution or as a master-slave configuration for larger plants with multiple aeration basins. This allows simple integration into an existing process control system and incorporation of existing instrumentation. What’s more, the remote access functionality offers flexible and effective process monitoring.
Process reliability and control
Due to continuous measurement and signal validation, Liquicontrol guarantees stable plant operation and reliable plant discharge. Should a measured value, or even a blower fail, the system switches the affected control loops to a failsafe condition and sends error or warning messages. The original plant operation settings can be restored at any time via selector switch. With Liquicontrol, plant personnel can switch between intermittent or continuous automatic mode and manual mode at any point, ensuring that they maintain complete control at all times.
Michael Szegedi, operating manager of Waldhausen Wastewater Treatment Plant had this to say about the system. “I was amazed by how fast and smoothly everything went. Within a few hours, the controller was up and running. After just a few weeks, we saw that we were able to operate the system at a very stable level while almost halving aeration times. Obviously, this saves energy.”
* Liquicontrol: optimising biological treatment at the highest level.
* Efficient: dynamic control of blower hardware and precipitant dosing pumps in accordance with the actual load.
* Reliable: constant signal and sensor validation ensure stable plant operation and reliable outlet values.
* Flexible: simultaneous control of nitrogen and phosphate elimination in multiple biological stages.
* Easy: quickly integrated into an existing process control system thanks to modern bus technologies.
* Convenient: intuitive menu and management of measured values and parameters – even with remote access.
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