Treatment FAQ

how does secondary treatment differ from primary treatment and what is accomplished?

by Prof. Yasmin Fahey IV Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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The principal difference in primary and secondary treatment is the process that breaks down the sewage in wastewater. In the primary method, the waste processes through a physical procedure with equipment and filtration. While secondary treatment may use similar items, this method uses biological treatment through microbes.

In the primary stage, solids are allowed to settle and removed from wastewater. The secondary stage uses biological processes to further purify wastewater. Sometimes, these stages are combined into one operation.

Full Answer

What is a secondary treatment?

A treatment process for wastewater or sewage. Secondary treatment is a treatment process for wastewater (or sewage) to achieve a certain degree of effluent quality by using a sewage treatment plant with physical phase separation to remove settleable solids and a biological process to remove dissolved and suspended organic compounds.

What is the difference between primary and secondary waste treatment?

In the primary method, the waste processes through a physical procedure with equipment and filtration. While secondary treatment may use similar items, this method uses biological treatment through microbes.

What is the primary treatment process?

The primary treatment process involves removal of grit, sand and coarse suspended material through a screening process, followed by settling of suspended solids.

What are the benefits of primary treatment?

Through the primary treatment, it is possible to remove materials that float and settle on top of water. Through primary treatment, it is possible to implement screening water treatment, reduce particles to fragments, remove grit and initiate sedimentation.

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What is the difference between primary treatment and secondary treatment?

The main difference is the way each respective treatment is processed. Primary treatment works on sedimentation, where solids separate from the water through several different tanks. In contrast, secondary treatment uses aeration, biofiltration and the interaction of waste throughout its process.

What is the basic difference between primary and secondary sewage treatment?

Primary sewage treatment is a physical process that removes large impurities while secondary sewage treatment is a biological process that removes organic matter of sewage through the action of microbes.

What is the difference between primary and secondary clarifiers?

Primary clarifiers are located downstream of the plant's screening and grit chambers to separate settleable solids from the raw wastewater influent, while secondary clarifiers are constructed downstream of the biological treatment or activated sludge facility to separate the treated wastewater from the biological mass ...

What is secondary treatment?

Secondary treatment removes the soluble organic matter that escapes primary treatment. It also removes more of the suspended solids. Removal is usually accomplished by biological processes in which microbes consume the organic impurities as food, converting them into carbon dioxide, water, and energy…

What is primary treatment?

Listen to pronunciation. (PRY-mayr-ee TREET-ment) The first treatment given for a disease. It is often part of a standard set of treatments, such as surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

What is secondary treatment of sewage?

Secondary treatment of sewage is called biological treatment because it involves living organisms such as aerobic or anaerobic microbes to digest the organic waste. [ 1] In this process, the primary effluent is first passed into an aeration tank where vigorous growth of aerobic microbes (flocs) takes place.

What is done during second stage of primary treatment?

Answer: Secondary Wastewater treatment is the second stage of wastewater treatment. In primary treatment, suspended solids, colloidal particles, oil, and grease are removed. In secondary treatment, biological treatment is done on the wastewater to remove the organic matter present.

Why secondary treatment is known as biological treatment?

Secondary treatment removes the dissolved organic matter by the use of biological agents and hence, known as biological treatment. This is achieved by microbes which can consume and degrade the organic matter converting it to carbon dioxide, water, and energy for their own growth and reproduction.

What is the main goal of secondary treatment in a modern sewage treatment plant?

The objective of secondary treatment is the further treatment of the effluent from primary treatment to remove the residual organics and suspended solids.

What happens in secondary treatment plant?

During secondary treatment, biological processes are used to remove dissolved and suspended organic matter measured as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). These processes are performed by microorganisms in a managed aerobic or anaerobic process depending on the treatment technology.

What is the purpose of primary treatment in wastewater?

The purpose of primary treatment is to settle material by gravity, removing floatable objects,and reducing the pollution to ease secondary treatment. Primary Treatment aims to reduce the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) in the wastewater.

Which type of treatment does clarification fall in secondary treatment primary treatment preliminary treatment tertiary treatment?

Which type of treatment does clarification fall in? Explanation: Clarification is classified as Primary treatment. Influent with high TSS can be treated here. The COD associated TSS also gets reduced in this stage.

What is the third step in wastewater management?

This third and last step in the basic wastewater management system is mostly comprised of removing phosphates and nitrates from the water supply. Substances like activates carbon and sand are among the most commonly used materials that assist in this process.

What is the most effective method of secondary treatment of wastewater?

This method of secondary treatment of wastewater employs sand filters, contact filters, or trickling filters to ensure that additional sediment is removed from wastewater. Of the three filters, trickling filters are typically the most effective for small-batch wastewater treatment.

What is primary treatment of wastewater?

Primary treatment of wastewater involves sedimentation of solid waste within the water. This is done after filtering out larger contaminants within the water. Wastewater is passed through several tanks and filters that separate water from contaminants.

How long does it take for a wastewater solution to be aerated?

The resulting mixture is then aerated for up to 30 hours at a time to ensure results.

What is an MBR system?

Membrane bioreactors (MBR) are activated sludge systems using a membrane liquid-solid phase separation process. The membrane component uses low pressure microfiltration or ultrafiltration membranes and eliminates the need for a secondary clarifier or filtration. The membranes are typically immersed in the aeration tank; however, some applications utilize a separate membrane tank. One of the key benefits of an MBR system is that it effectively overcomes the limitations associated with poor settling of sludge in conventional activated sludge (CAS) processes. The technology permits bioreactor operation with considerably higher mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) concentration than CAS systems, which are limited by sludge settling. The process is typically operated at MLSS in the range of 8,000–12,000 mg/L, while CAS are operated in the range of 2,000–3,000 mg/L. The elevated biomass concentration in the MBR process allows for very effective removal of both soluble and particulate biodegradable materials at higher loading rates. Thus increased sludge retention times, usually exceeding 15 days, ensure complete nitrification even in extremely cold weather.

How does an aerated lagoon work?

Aerated lagoons are a low technology suspended-growth method of secondary treatment using motor-driven aerators floating on the water surface to increase atmospheric oxygen transfer to the lagoon and to mix the lagoon contents. The floating surface aerators are typically rated to deliver the amount of air equivalent to 1.8 to 2.7 kg O 2 / kW·h. Aerated lagoons provide less effective mixing than conventional activated sludge systems and do not achieve the same performance level. The basins may range in depth from 1.5 to 5.0 metres. Surface-aerated basins achieve 80 to 90 percent removal of BOD with retention times of 1 to 10 days. Many small municipal sewage systems in the United States (1 million gal./day or less) use aerated lagoons.

How much BOD is in secondary treated sewage?

Secondary treated sewage is expected to produce effluent with a monthly average of less than 30 mg/l BOD and less than 30 mg/l suspended solids. Weekly averages may be up to 50 percent higher.

What is the advantage of MBR?

One of the key benefits of an MBR system is that it effectively overcomes the limitations associated with poor settling of sludge in conventional activated sludge (CAS) processes.

How is primary clarifier effluent discharged?

Primary clarifier effluent was discharged directly to eutrophic natural wetlands for decades before environmental regulations discouraged the practice. Where adequate land is available, stabilization ponds with constructed wetland ecosystems can be built to perform secondary treatment separated from the natural wetlands receiving secondary treated sewage. Constructed wetlands resemble fixed-film systems more than suspended growth systems, because natural mixing is minimal. Constructed wetland design uses plug flow assumptions to compute the residence time required for treatment. Patterns of vegetation growth and solids deposition in wetland ecosystems, however, can create preferential flow pathways which may reduce average residence time. Measurement of wetland treatment efficiency is complicated because most traditional water quality measurements cannot differentiate between sewage pollutants and biological productivity of the wetland. Demonstration of treatment efficiency may require more expensive analyses.

What is a cyclic activated sludge system?

One type of system that combines secondary treatment and settlement is the cyclic activated sludge (CASSBR), or sequencing batch reactor (SBR). Typically, activated sludge is mixed with raw incoming sewage, and then mixed and aerated. The settled sludge is run off and re-aerated before a proportion is returned to the headworks.

What is process upset?

Process upsets are temporary decreases in treatment plant performance caused by significant population change within the secondary treatment ecosystem. Conditions likely to create upsets include for example toxic chemicals and unusually high or low concentrations of organic waste BOD providing food for the bioreactor ecosystem.

What Does Secondary Treatment Mean?

Secondary treatment is a step in wastewater treatment that involves the use of biological processes in order to capture all the dissolved organic materials that were not caught during the initial treatment.

Corrosionpedia Explains Secondary Treatment

Total solids in wastewater can be categorized as inorganic and organic. When it comes to the size, it can be divided into suspended, colloidal and dissolved solids. The main purpose of the initial or primary treatment is to eliminate the suspended solids as much as possible.

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