Wastewater Management
Automating wastewater treatment to meet regulatory standards
Automation is becoming ever more important when it comes to wastewater treatment, especially in terms of control and monitoring, increasing capacity, improving effluent quality, and meeting environmental compliance standards.
Automatisierung wird bei der Abwasseraufbereitung immer wichtiger, insbesondere hinsichtlich Steuerung und Überwachung, Kapazitätssteigerung, verbesserte Abwasserqualität und Einhaltung von Umweltvorschriften.
L’automatisation prend de plus en plus d’importance dans le domaine du traitement des eaux usées, et plus particulièrement en termes de contrôle et de suivi, d’augmentation des capacités, d’amélioration de la qualité des effluents et de conformation aux normes environnementales.
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merson Process Management has been selected to automate equipment and processes for two innovative environmental projects at DC Water’s Blue
Plains advanced wastewater treatment plant in Washington, DC, USA. Blue Plains is the largest plant of its kind
in the world, with a capacity of 370 million gallons/day. DC Water is undertaking two major capital improvement projects - enhanced nutrient removal, and thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion - that will help it comply with evolving environmental regulations and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed while serving an expanding population. Emerson’s Ovation control system will help DC Water optimise operations of these new facilities (Fig. 1). The plant currently utilises a sophisticated
nitrification/denitrification and filtration process to reduce the amount of nitrogen in the water. Excess nitrogen causes an overgrowth of aquatic plants and algae, robbing water of the oxygen fish and other aquatic life need to survive. The
US$950 million (€719 million) enhanced nutrient removal project is designed to reduce almost to the limit of technology the level of nitrogen that DC Water discharges to the Potomac River. Ovation technology will monitor and
control all major equipment and processes related to the project which, once complete, will enable Blue Plains to produce effluent with some of the lowest levels of nitrogen in the country, especially for a plant of its size. The second project, thermal hydrolysis and
anaerobic digestion, will enable DC Water to reduce biosolids by 50 per cent. This will not only slash carbon dioxide emissions associated with hauling biosolids away by up to 60 tons, but will also allow DC Water to burn the methane gas by-product to generate electricity that will help offset power by one third for its operations. Additionally, the remaining class A biosolids will have greater commercial value, because they offer more reuse options as a fertiliser than the plant’s current biosolids. The control system will monitor and
control the anaerobic digesters, final dewatering and other equipment and processes
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