Sewage Treatment

Plant Report
Supervised By: Dr Haidy Shoukry
Presented By:Lena Ahmed Mohamed Aly El-
Sayegh Group A2, 3rd year
Date of the visit:

Introduction
1)The Setting:
The sewage treatment plant is in Sarabium Area, the manager told us the
area it covers, where it receives wastewater from and its main sources
which are Ismailia districts and then it drains into El -Mahsama and lastly
the Temsah Lake. We were given a small talk and a brief description about
the place and what we are going to see by a coworker then we visited each
place separately.
2) Objectives of the visit:
1- Identify the stages of wastewater treatment process.
2- list the importance of waste water treatment.
3- know what the treated waste water will be used for.

3) Scientific Background:
Sewage treatment plant process includes sewage treatment on primary,
Secondary or biological and tertiary treatment process to improve quality of
wastewater for recycle.With increasing infrastructural development and
water usage for various purposes such as domestic and commercial, there
is generation of waste water.

What type of waste does sewage contain?

Sewage usually contains a high quantity of organic wastes and may also
consist of inorganic wastes. It is essential to treat sewage before its entry
into any water body. Why so? Sewage, if allowed to enter water sources
without treatment, it will contaminate them; which is why it is essential to
treat sewage properly before letting it into rivers or streams for example.

Sewage Treatment Plant process:

Sewage can be treated by designing a sewage treatment plant (STP) which
involves three stages: primary/preliminary, secondary and tertiary.
Primary treatment:
In a sewage treatment plant, sewage water is first allowed to pass through
screens or grit chamber where large solids are removed. This step is
followed by aeration/mixing in a tank and then primary sedimentation where
suspended solids settle down. Primary treatment involves addition of a
coagulant and aims at removing grits, coarse solids, oil and grease if any
present. Preliminary treatment results in sedimentation of solids (sludge)
and formation of an effluent that floats above sludge. Effluent from primary
treatment consists of 45-50 % unstable organic matter. The effluent then
undergoes secondary treatment where fine solids settle out by means of
bacterial activities.
Secondary or biological
treatment:
This stage converts organic
matter in sewage into stable
forms through biological activities,
resulting in secondary
sedimentation. Common
approaches are trickling filters
and activated sludge method.

Trickling filters comprise an

enclosed tank with a bed of bricks and a layer of microorganisms. The
effluent enters the tank through an inlet and trickles over the bed layer by
sprinklers. Microbial activities oxidize the organic matter in the effluent,
resulting in the removal of fine solids, formation of sludge and an effluent
with less organic solids.

Activated sludge method involves the addition of a mixture of active

microorganisms to sewage, followed by aeration and agitation. The aerobic
conditions and microbial actions oxidize the organic solids resulting in
coagulation, flocculation and settling of solids. Activated sludge produces a
clear liquid without foul odor.

Tertiary treatment:

The effluent then undergoes tertiary treatment/disinfection by chlorination or

Other methods such as sand filters and reverse osmosis may also be used
instead for this stage of treatment, depending upon the nature of the
sewage and the effluent from secondary treatment.

What happens to the sludge produced from primary and secondary

sedimentation?

Sludge is digested in a tank which results in the release of combustible

gases: methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2); that can be used as fuel.
The digested sludge can either be disposed by incineration or used as a
fertilizer.

Description of the Visit Observations

1)The setting:
When we arrived the manager
greeted us and the first place we
visited was the Laboratory of the
plant, The doctor there gave us a
talk about the sewage treatment
technology, when it was introduced
to Egypt and how it made a lot of
difference. He told us the plant
receives from three pumping
stations, which are Abu Atwa
station), Sarabium station and Abu
Sultan station. Also, he explained to
us the cautions & safety factors that should be taken to prevent any
complications like masks& gloves and showed us TSS, ROD &TDS and he
also showed us other instruments which we can identify and quantity the
chemical components so it can measure the turbidity degree of the treated
water, to check whether the water quality is suitable for usage or not.
2) Organizational Structure of the Plant:
Screening
1- Screen bars:

First unit of water treatment plant is

screening using screen bars,This is first
step in wastewater treatment process.
Screening involves the removal of large
objects for example cotton buds, plastics,
diapers, rags, sanitary items, face wipes, broken bottles or bottle tops that in
one way or another may damage the equipment.

Primary Treatment

2-Grit removal channels:

This process involves the separation of

macrobiotic solid matter from the
wastewater. Primary treatment is done by
pouring the wastewater into big tanks for
the solid matter to settle at the surface of
the tanks which is removed by large
scrappers at the center of the cylindrical
tanks. The remaining water is then pumped for secondary treatment.

Secondary Treatment

The next step of the treatment process is secondary clarifier. The water
from the primary tank is transported to the secondary clarifier for adding
chemicals such as lime and alum to reduce the PH of water.After the
preliminary treatment, the secondary treatment starts by distribution of water
equally to three series of treatment ponds, where each series includes a
succession of three large pools, so that each pool in the series of pools
serves as part of the targeted treatment process.
Aerationn Tank

The settled wastewater enters

aeration tanks where air is blown into
the liquid to provide oxygen for
mixing and to promote the growth of
micro-organisms.Some of this sludge
is recycled to the inlet of the aeration
tank to maintain the biomass, hence
the name for the process activated
sludge. The remainder is pumped to
anaerobic digester for further
treatment.

Disinfection unit

The next steps for wastewater treatment plants use disinfection for
treatment to reduce pathogens, which are micro-organisms which can pose
a risk to human health.

Sludge Digestion

Now again to remove the sludge particles the water is passed through the
belt filter press. The purified water is obtained by chemically treating the
water coming out of the belt filter press. In which Chlorine is usually dosed
into the treated wastewater stream for disinfection.

3) The personnel in the sewage treatment plant:

The sewage treatment plant employs many workers and officers. We met a
few of them during our visit. We met about three chemists in the central
laboratory, whose job that is to do integrated water analysis before and after
treatment. We encountered several people whose duty it is to remove grit
using vehicles in the grit removal channels. There were also a lot of
technicians there. There were also a huge number of officers whose job it
was to look after the sewage treatment plant's management affairs.
 Conclusion
This visit helped us to enhance our collective theoretical and practical
knowledge of sewage primary, secondary treatment and tertiary Treatment
Plants. we can understand detailed design of plant and process which were
covered in the subjects. Also, we can identify our prospective study areas
for further study and research. Physical observation of various processes of
plants enhanced the skill and understanding of the sewage treatment
process in a more efficient way.

Appendix