Treatment FAQ

what happens at a secondary treatment

by Litzy Fahey III Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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During secondary treatment, biological processes are used to remove dissolved and suspended organic matter measured as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD

Biochemical oxygen demand

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) (also called biological oxygen demand) is the amount of dissolved oxygen needed (i. e., demanded) by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material present in a given water sample at certain temperature over a specific time period.

). These processes are performed by microorganisms in a managed aerobic or anaerobic process depending on the treatment technology.

The secondary stage of treatment removes about 85 percent of the organic matter in sewage by making use of the bacteria in it. The principal secondary treatment techniques used in secondary treatment are the trickling filter and the activated sludge process.

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 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.

What is the second stage of wastewater treatment?

Secondary Wastewater Treatment TREATMENT 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.

What is the final step in the secondary treatment process?

The final step in the secondary treatment stage is to settle out the biological floc or filter material in a secondary sedimentation tank (SST) or secondary clarifier and produce sewage water containing very low levels of organic material and suspended matter

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What is a secondary treatment system?

Secondary treatment system is a wastewater treatment system which produces treated wastewater of secondary standard, i.e. 20 mg/L of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), 30 mg/L of Total suspended solids (TSS) and 10 cfu/100 mL of Escherichia (E) coli.

What steps are taken during secondary treatment of wastewater?

Secondary Wastewater Treatment TREATMENTActivated Sludge Process (ASP) / Extended Aeration System (EAS)Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR)Moving Bed Bio Film Reactor (MBBR)Membrane Bioreactor (MBR)

What is the goal of secondary treatment?

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

What type of process is secondary treatment?

Secondary treatment involves the removal of biodegradable organic matter (BOD) and suspended solids (TSS) through the processes of aeration and filtration. Secondary treatment is typically characterized as producing a treated wastewater effluent with a BOD of 25 mg/L or less and TSS of 30 mg/L or less.

What is the purpose of secondary treatment of waste water?

Secondary wastewater treatment processes use microorganisms to biologically remove contaminants from wastewater. Secondary biological processes can be aerobic or anaerobic, each process utilizing a different type of bacterial community.

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.

What does secondary treatment not remove?

Michigan Environmental Education Curriculum. Wastewater Treatment. Microorganisms such as bacteria and protozoa can use the small particles and dissolved organic matter, not removed in primary treatment, as food.

What is the time duration for secondary treatment process?

Surface-aerated basins achieve 80 to 90 percent removal of BOD with retention times of 1 to 10 days.

What is primary treatment and secondary treatment?

Differences between primary and secondary wastewater treatmentPrimary Wastewater TreatmentSecondary Wastewater TreatmentIn this method, the waste is processed through a physical procedure with equipment and filtration.The wastewater is purified through biological processes using microorganisms.3 more rows

What type of decomposition is being used during secondary treatment?

Secondary treatment removes dissolved and suspended biological matter, often using microorganisms in a controlled environment. Most secondary treatment systems use aerobic bacteria, which consume the organic components of the sewage (sugar, fat, and so on).

What is the 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 final treatment?

Final treatment and dispersal components provide the final removal of contaminants and distribute the effluent for dispersal back into the environment. Several options are available for distributing wastewater in soil. Gravity flow systems are the most widely used dispersal systems.

What is secondary treatment?

Secondary treatment is designed to substantially degrade the biological content of the sewage which are derived from human waste, food waste, soaps and detergent. The majority of municipal plants use aerobic biological processes as a secondary treatment step. To be effective, the biota require both oxygen and food to live.

What happens when biocide concentrations exceed the secondary treatment?

BOD reduction normally accomplished by that species temporarily ceases until other species reach a suitable population to utilize that food source, or the original population recovers as biocide concentrations decline.

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.

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 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 is the biological stage of a high charged system?

This refers to the way the biological load is processed. In high charged systems, the biological stage is presented with a high organic load and the combined floc and organic material is then oxygenated for a few hours before being charged again with a new load.

What is primary treatment of sewage?

Primary treatment of sewage by quiescent settling allows separation of floating material and heavy solids from liquid waste. The remaining liquid usually contains less than half of the original solids content and approximately two-thirds of the BOD in the form of colloids and dissolved organic compounds.

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.

What is secondary wastewater treatment?

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. This treatment is performed by indigenous and aquatic micro-organisms like ...

What is SBR treatment?

It is used to reduce the organic matter (BOD and COD), oxygen is bubbled with a mixture of wastewater and activated sludge. After this treatment, the treated water can be discharged on surface water.

What is the process of dissimilation?

The dissimilation process of breaking down the nitrate molecule to make it chemically-bound oxygen requires both an electron donor and an electron acceptor. Nitrate gains (accepts) electrons and is reduced to nitrogen gas and a carbon source loses (donates) electrons and is oxidized to carbon dioxide.

What is the process that uses oxygen to break down organic matter and remove other pollutants?

These processes are sensitive to temperature and with an increase in temperature, the rate of biological reactions increases. 1. Aerobic Treatment: Aerobic wastewater treatment is a biological treatment that uses oxygen to break down organic matter and remove other pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus.

What is a membrane bioreactor?

Membrane Bioreactor – MBR is the combination of ultrafiltration (UF) and activated sludge process. MBR produces effluent of high quality which can be discharged to surface water for reuse. It can be retrofitted in existing installations.

What Does Secondary Treatment Mean?

Secondary treatment is the portion of the sewage treatment process in which microorganisms remove dissolved pollutants from liquid sewage after solids have been removed.

Safeopedia Explains Secondary Treatment

Solids in waste-water can be removed by allowing them to settle out, or float so that they can be removed, but the soluble pollutants in the water are still present, making it unsafe for release into the environment. The EPA requires effluent to have less than 30mg per liter biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).

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.

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 considered preliminary treatment?

Preliminary Treatment: Physical. When wastewater arrives at the treatment plant, it contains many solids that cannot be removed by the wastewater treatment process. This can include rags, paper, wood, food particles, egg shells, plastic, and even toys and money.

What happens when wastewater enters the secondary clarifier?

When the wastewater enters the two Secondary Clarifiers, it still contains lots of microorganisms from the Aeration Basins and looks brown and murky. The Secondary Clarifiers are identical to the Primary Clarifiers; materials in the wastewater sink and float and rotating arms remove this material from the water.

How much water does a secondary clarifier hold?

The Secondary Clarifiers each hold 800,000 gallons of water.

What is the difference between primary and secondary treatment?

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.

What is 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. The primary treatment pushes sewage through screens into the comminutor for grip disposal ...

How is wastewater treated?

The primary treatment of wastewater occurs through sedimentation with filtering out large contaminant particles within the liquid. The contaminants separate as they are passed through several tanks and other filters. Leftover sludge filters through a digester to suspend solids from the wastewater.

What is primary wastewater treatment?

The primary wastewater process utilizes equipment to break up larger particles and then uses sedimentation or a floating process for extraction. Many treatments that use the primary method then proceed to the secondary treatment process.

What is the process of removing impurities from water?

The removal in the secondary wastewater treatment process generally occurs through a biological process with consumption of impurities in water by microbes, converting the matter into energy, carbon dioxide gases, and water. AOS can help with municipal wastewater treatment services in both primary and secondary processes.

How to get rid of sediment in sewage?

The first is biofiltration that uses filters with sand, contact filters or trickling filters that remove sediment from the sewage. Aeration is the next step. It mixes the wastewater with a microorganism solution. Then, this treatment uses an oxidation pond to pass the wastewater through a body for up to two or three weeks.

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Overview

Secondary treatment is the removal of biodegradable organic matter (in solution or suspension) from sewage or similar kinds of wastewater. The aim is to achieve a certain degree of effluent quality in a sewage treatment plant suitable for the intended disposal or reuse option. A "primary treatment" step often precedes secondary treatment, whereby physical phase separation is used to r…

Definitions

Primary treatment settling removes about half of the solids and a third of the BOD from raw sewage. Secondary treatment is defined as the "removal of biodegradable organic matter (in solution or suspension) and suspended solids. Disinfection is also typically included in the definition of conventional secondary treatment." Biological nutrient removal is regarded by some sanitary engineers …

Process types

Secondary treatment systems are classified as fixed-film or suspended-growth systems A great number of secondary treatment processes exist, see List of wastewater treatment technologies. The main ones are explained below.
In older plants and those receiving variable loadings, trickling filter beds are used where the settled sewage liquor is spread onto the surface of a bed made up of

Design considerations

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined secondary treatment based on the performance observed at late 20th-century bioreactors treating typical United States municipal 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. A sewage treatment plant providing both primary and secondary trea…

See also

• List of wastewater treatment technologies
• Sanitation

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