1.

1 Removal of oil and grease

An API oil-water separator is used to separate the free oil from the wastewater. Under
quiescent flow conditions, free oil can be removed by gravity separation. This removal is a
function of residence time, differences in specific gravity and temperature. It is assumed that
the oil in the domestic wastewater has a specific gravity less than 1 and it will rise to the
surface of the wastewater.

1.2 Primary Settling Tank

The objective of treatment by sedimentation is to remove readily settleable solids and floating
material and thus reduce the suspended solids content. Primary settling is used as a
preliminary step in the further processing of wastewater. Efficiently designed PST tanks are
able to remove 50 to 70% of TSS and 25 to 40% BOD (Tchobanoglous,G, 2004)

Primary treatment separates the willingly settleable and floatable solids from wastewater by
providing a tank where the velocity of the wastewater is reduced second. Other advantages of
primary settling include equalization of sidestream flows and removal of the biochemical
oxygen demand associated with settleable solids.

To improve settling performance, pre-aeration or chemical addition occasionally precedes the

sedimentation basins. Some treatment facilities set up chemical-feed equipment strictly for
the addition of chemicals to the wastewater influent flow to enhance floc formation to boost
settling. Other treatment plants use chemicals for odour control or phosphorus removal and,
in the process, receive the additional benefit of increased settling in the primary
sedimentation tanks. However, most primary sedimentation tank facilities do not use any
chemicals to enhance settling.

Many treatment plants use primary sedimentation tanks for thickening primary sludge in
addition to separating solids from wastewater. In these cases, the primary tanks are sized to
accommodate sedimentation and thickening. Some treatment plants use primary
sedimentation tanks to co-settle primary sludge and waste activated sludge. In this case, the
primary sedimentation tank is also used as a thickening unit.