CTB3365x – Introduction to Water Treatment

W2c – Primary sedimentation

Jules van Lier

The screened and de-gritted sewage is further conveyed

towards the biological treatment step.
Can we remove some part of the organic upfront to minimize
energy requirements in the bioreactors?
In this lecture we will discuss the principles and design of the
primary settlers or primary clarifiers.

After passing the screens and grit chamber the sewage merely
consists of organic pollutants.
About 50% of the pollution load is present as suspended solids,
of which a large part is settle-able in a clarification tank as
indicated.

Suspended solids of organic nature are non-discrete particles

and follow the flocculent settling pattern as discussed in our
previous lecture.
They coalesce with other particles during settling leading to
increased particle densities and thus increased settling
velocities.

At the upper part of the clarifier the flocculent settling process

occurs whereas at the lower part the hindered settling is
dominating.

The occurring mechanisms of particle enlargement are

flocculation and coagulation.

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In a primary clarifier the settle-able organic solids are removed
via the bottom, whereas the floating organic matter is
skimmed from the top part of the tank.

A primary clarifier may remove up to 50-70% of the suspended

solids and about 25-40% of the BOD.

Primary clarifiers are constructed in circular tanks as well as in

rectangular tanks.

In screens and grit chambers the hydraulic flow velocities is

very high, but for the primary settler the flow velocity needs to
be reduced by at least a factor of 10.
Therefore, the inlet works and flow distribution of the
incoming flow into the clarifier are important design aspects.
At the inlet an energy dissipation of the incoming flow is
required to avoid turbulence that might affect the settling
process.

A circular clarifier is equipped with a bridge the moves slowly

clockwise with the help of a motor which is mounted at the
extreme of the bridge.
In the slide you see a cross section of the clarifier with the
bridge serving two purposes:

At the down part of the bridge a bottom scraper is mounted

that gently moves the settled sludge to the central core of the
clarifier.
From here the settled sludge is pumped to another treatment
device, for instance a sludge thickener.

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At the top part, just under the bridge, a surface scraper is
mounted, that gently skims the surface from floating organic
matter.
Also the collected floating matter is collected at a central point
and conveyed to a subsequent treatment step.

The basic settling principles in circular or rectangular tanks are

the same,

but construction wise there are some differences.

In rectangular tanks, the inflow is distributed at the lateral

slide of the clarifier, and leaves the tank at the opposite
extreme.
The bottom scrapers are mounted on a chain, which is driven
by gears as shown in the slide.
This construction, however, can be vulnerable and regular
maintenance is required, for which the tank needs to be
emptied.
Directly under the bridge, a surface scraper is mounted to skim
the floating organic material.

Are all sewage treatment plants equipped with a primary

settler? No, the so-called oxidation ditches and carrousels are
directly fed with non-settled sewage.
As a results, all organic material, including the settle-able
organic solids need to be stabilized in the aeration tank.
And as a consequence, the required volume of aeration tanks
needs to be bigger.

In fact, oxidation ditches and carrousels have less process units

than shown in the slide schematizing the activated sludge
process, which, for instance, is used in the city of Delft.
For primary settling no mathematical formulas apply.
However, increasing density and increasing size will lead to
improved settling performance, similarly to discrete settling.
In addition, increased particles concentration will lead to
enhanced flocculation and thus higher efficiency, provided the
particles have a high ability to flocculate.

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Increase in liquid turbulence will immediately decrease the
efficiency of flocculent settling as illustrated in the graph.
Ideally, the flow regime is non-turbulent which will lead to the
settling of the particles according the settling path of particle
B.
Turbulence may cause drastic deviations from this flow regime
as indicated by the settling path A.
Now, how can we reduce Reynolds number in order to reach a
more laminar flow regime?

Most ideally the influent is distributed equally over the entire

inlet area, resulting in a more or less laminar flow without any
areas of hydraulic short circuiting.
Inadequate flow distribution may bypass large areas of the
clarifier, resulting on the one hand, in dead spaces, and on the
other hand, in areas with much higher flow velocities than
foreseen.

Also circular tanks may develop instable flow regimes as a

result of inadequate flow distribution or improper energy
dissipation of the incoming flow.
In a primary clarifier, we try to reach a stable flow regime
characterized by a high resistance to flow disturbances.

Temperature, and particularly temperature differences within

the tank, may largely impact the sedimentation performance
of the clarifier.
From the discrete settling principles we learned that with
increasing temperature the liquid viscosity will drop, leading to
an increase in Reynolds number and thus a higher turbulence.
With Reynolds number less than 2000, this will result in a drop
of the drag coefficient, and thus, increase in the terminal
particle velocity.
Under laminar flow conditions, this will lead to enhanced
settling.

However, temperature differences may create areas of lower

density next to areas with a higher density.
The resulting effect is a short circuiting of the liquid reducing
the actual settling volume, leading to a worse performance.
Density differences may be caused by incoming sunshine.

In addition to temperature induced density differences causing

active flow volume reduction, also strong winds may impact
the flow regime.
How can we design a tank that is resistant to flow
disturbances?

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For creating hydraulically stable flows we have to take the
Froude number into consideration. The Froude number in fact
defines the resistance to flow disturbances and should be
higher than 10 to the power -5. The Froude number can be
expressed in the dimensional measures of either a rectangular
tank or a circular tank. Based in the required Froude number,
rectangular tanks should be narrow and long and circular tanks
should have a large diameter. But note that large diameter
tanks are more susceptible for weather influences.

In contrast to discrete settling the tank depth is crucial in

flocculent settling.
A higher depth enlarges the chances for flocculation as is
illustrated in this slide.
But note that it will be more difficult to guarantee laminar
flows in more deep tanks.

The depth of a tank is determined by the allowable scouring

velocity, or the maximum allowable horizontal velocity.
The lower the depth, the higher the scouring velocity.
In discrete settling we discussed that a relatively high scouring
velocity of 0.3 m/s is applicable to separate sand from organic
solids. For primary sludge itself, the maximum scouring
velocity is about a factor 10 lower, so, 0.03 m/s. For sludge
from the bioreactor, the activated sludge, this value drops to
0.02 m/s. The allowable scouring velocity is dependent on a
number of factors, such as, the diameter of the particles, the
specific gravity of the particles, the material constant, and the
Darcy-Weisbach friction factor.

While leaving the exit of the clarifier tank, the water flow
should keep its non-turbulent flow pattern, which is
determined by the weir overflow loading.

However, flow acceleration towards the weir cannot be

prevented as shown in the slide.
For primary clarifiers a weir loading of 10-15 m3/m.h is
allowed.
A too high loading will cause light material to leave the tank.

In circular clarifiers, the sludge is collected in the bottom core

of the tank by using a rotating bridge, under which bottom
scrapers are mounted.
In circular tanks, the maximum speed at the outer edge of the
bridge is about 0.06-0.07 m/s.
Note that in rectangular tanks, a maximum bridge speed of
0.03 m/s is applied.
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The collected sludge is either removed continuously or semi-
continuously.
But retention times inside the primary clarifier should be less
than a day, to prevent sludge digestion in the tank and the
production of bad odor.

The solids and BOD removal efficiency is a function of the

applied hydraulic retention time.
Considering the fluctuating incoming flows, removal
efficiencies will accordingly fluctuate, when duration of the
peaks exceed the design HRTs.
The shown constants a and b are empirically assessed and will
differ per clarifier and per location.

The current slide lists the most important design guidelines of

primary clarifiers:
Maximum flow - surface loading rate should be designed as
1.5-2.5 m3/m2.h.
However, whenever the average flow rate equals the
maximum flow rate even higher values up to 4.0 m3/m2.h are
applicable.
The average hydraulic residence time or HRT is about 5 h, the
minimum HRT during peak flow should not be less than 1 – 1.5
h.
The depth of the tank is between 1.5 and 2.5 m.
The bottom slop to facilitate sludge collection is about 1:10 –
1:12.

Round tanks must have a diameter between 20 and 60 m, with

an optimum size of about 30-40 m.
If needed, the number of tanks must be increased.

Rectangular tanks have an maximum length of 90 m and an

optimum length of about 30-50 m.
The applied width is generally 5-6 m, but could be increased up
to 12 m, demanding more attention to bridge construction.
The width:length ratio is about 1:5-1:6, whereas the
depth:length ratio is about 1:2.

The pre-screened, de-gritted and clarified sewage is still full of

soluble pollutants.
Physicochemical removal of these pollutants will be too
expensive.
In the next lectures we will discuss how to engineer natural
conversion processes in compact bio-reactors.