To take wastewater and turn it into safe effluent water for release into public water bodies is no simple task.
With immense demand from residential and commercial areas, it’s up to wastewater management centers to tackle this complex process.
These treatment centers often employ several techniques and processes to treat wastewater safely and efficiently.
O&M Solutions is your go-to choice for water and wastewater management in the New Jersey area. Get in touch today to learn more about our services.
Are you ready to learn more about wastewater treatment solutions? Read on.
Water and Wastewater Systems
Around 153,000 public water systems and 16,000 publicly owned wastewater treatment centers dot the U.S.
Before it gets to your tap, water goes through quite the journey. Often, water treatment centers pump surface water from sources that could be hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away:
Lakes
Reservoirs
Rivers
Groundwater sources like aquifers
Public water systems are in charge of treating that water and making sure it’s safe for consumption and use by the general public.
Once treated, this water is stored and distributed to the public.
Of course, that’s only half of the story. After homes, businesses and industrial facilities use public water, they send it back into the system for treatment in the form of wastewater.
How do these water treatment plants work?
While treatment methods will depend on facility type, wastewater demands and treatment access, most treatment centers follow a similar method:
Pretreatment and screening
Pumping and aerating
Sludge and scum removal
Disinfection
Effluent release
Water treatment technicians work in these wastewater management centers and manage day-to-day operations for safe treatment. What do they do?
They handle everything from equipment operation to maintenance. It’s also a huge part of the job to keep exact records to ensure water treatment efficiency and to maintain environmental standards for wastewater management.
In most cases, a water treatment center provides services to a large area. This means businesses, residences, farms, etc.
In some areas, though, treatment centers are not an option. It’s often the case that rural communities leverage other wastewater treatment methods like the use of wastewater lagoons or septic systems.
Types of Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater treatment systems are usually a combination of several different technologies. The goal is to remove waste materials to an acceptable level so treated water can re-enter public water bodies and the greater water system.
Within wastewater are all kinds of waste materials:
Nitrates and phosphates—too many nitrates and phosphates can lead to environmental issues like eutrophication and the deoxygenation of a body of water.
Metals—mainly from industrial waste sources, metals can cause significant environmental issues and human health problems.
Synthetic chemicals—whether it’s pesticides or other industrial chemicals, these compounds can easily enter humans and cause damage.
Those are just a few of the waste types that water treatment aims to eliminate. But how does it all happen? Let’s explore some common types of wastewater treatment.
Biological Treatment
Mother nature has its own system for dealing with waste. Biological methods of wastewater treatment focus on amplifying the natural process of biodegradation.
In essence, these systems foster a strong and reliant microbiological environment that does most of the treatment work. This environment does a great job of digesting waste and turning it into stable byproducts.
This happens in a few ways, with the main difference being the presence of oxygen:
Aerobic treatment uses an oxygen-rich environment to foster the growth of microbes. These microbes do the work of breaking down waste and turning it into biomass sludge and carbon dioxide.
Anaerobic treatment does the same thing but with an opposite process. Instead of being oxygen-rich, this microbial environment uses no oxygen at all. During anaerobic digestion, biomass solids and methane-rich gas are the byproducts.
Treatment centers that leverage biological treatment do so by either using an attached growth system or a suspended growth system. In the former, an inert medium such as plastic balls or lava rocks allows for microbial growth. In the latter, microbes themselves are suspended in the wastewater.
Mechanical Treatment
As the name implies, mechanical treatment leverages mechanical processes to separate solids from wastewater. This can happen in many different ways.
First, treatment centers use gravity to separate the water column. Given enough time, solid particles will separate from the water. Generally speaking, the finer the material, the longer it will take to settle.
Because of this, gravity can only take treatment so far.
Equipment like circular or rectangular clarifiers, ground settling tanks, lagoons, and lamella clarifiers use gravity to help separate solid waste from wastewater. Outside of gravity, treatment centers will leverage several other mechanical treatment processes:
Filtration
Media filters
Bag filters
Membrane filters
The majority of these filtration systems work using a similar method. By pressurizing a vessel, these systems push water through porous material or filter media like sand, cloth, or specialty plastics and ceramics.
Chemical Treatment
Lastly, treatment centers often leverage chemical treatment methods to further treat wastewater.
Chemical treatment often targets a particular chemical reaction and usually enhances natural phenomena like gravity separation and increases the overall efficacy of the treatment process.
One of the most basic chemical treatment methods is pH adjustment.
By adjusting the balance of hydrogen and hydroxyl ions in the water, treatment technicians can manipulate both the acidity and alkalinity of wastewater. By changing the pH of wastewater, treatment centers can better control how chemicals might react during the treatment process.
Of course, that’s only one chemical treatment method:
Oxidation
Precipitation
Coagulation
Flocculation
Find a Wastewater Treatment Solution Provider Near Me
While wastewater treatment methods vary depending on the management center, most facilities will leverage similar processes to treat wastewater.
In most cases, a combination of different treatment methods is the key to creating efficient and safe treatment processes.
O&M Solutions provides both the private and public sectors with operations and management solutions to meet all your water and wastewater treatment needs. We proudly serve the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York areas.
If you are looking to learn more about our wastewater treatment management services, reach out today.