Wastewater Characteristics

Part-1
 Wastewater
 liquid waste (wastewater) can be classified as (based on source)


Domestic

 Industrial

 Storm
 Domestic : water used for normal activity in homes, businesses and institutions.
Domestic wastewater is readily treatable.

Industrial:
 The character of industrical wastewater depends on the type of industry.
 Some industrial wastewaters can be treated the same as domestic wastes without
difficulty.

 Others may contain toxic substances or high percentages of organic materials or

solids which make treatment difficult.
 In such cases, the industrial plant may have to pretreat its wastewater to
remove these pollutants or reduce them to treatable levels before they are accepted
into a general treatment facility.
Storm:
 usually low in pollutants.
 Great amounts of storm water can interfere
with treatment efficiency in two ways:
 Storm water may cause too much dilution of
the wastewater.
 At the same time, it may cause hydraulic
overloading of the plant.
 Wastewater characteristics
 General classes of wastewater constituents such
as physical, chemical, biological.
 An understanding of the nature of wastewater is
essential in

 the design and operation of collection,

 treatment, and reuse facilities,
 and in the engineering management of
environmental quality.
 Pollution indicators
Proper sampling and analytical techniques are of
fundamental importance in the characterization of
wastewater
Physical ：
Chemical ： (Turbidity)
 pH
 BOD
(Color)
 COD (Odor)
 (N)
 (P) Biological ：
 (SS) (Coliform)
 (DO)
(Pathogen)
Wastewater characteristics

1. ORGANIC MATTER
– Carbohydrates/ Sugars, proteins, lipids;
– Toilet wastes, cleaning, food wastes,…

COD – Chemical Oxygen Demand (mg O2/l)

 A measure of the oxygen-consuming capacity of organic matter
present in wastewater.
 COD is expressed as the amount of oxygen consumed from a
chemical oxidant (K2Cr2O7 ) in mg/L during a specific test.

BOD – Biochemical Oxygen Demand (mg O2/l)

 The quantity of oxygen (O ) that microorganism use per litre
2
water, during a continuous period of 5 days, at 20°C. The rate at
which organisms use the oxygen in wastewater while stabilizing
decomposable organic matter under aerobic conditions.
 BOD5/COD > 0.6 ， (biodegradable)
BOD5/COD < 0.2 ， (non-
biodegradable, recalcitrant)

 Domestic wastewater: BOD/COD = 0.4;

Dairy wastewater: BOD/COD = 0.6 – 0.7
 Biological oxygen demand
 (BOD) is a measure of the oxygen required to
stabilize or decompose the organic matter in a
water body, over a five-day period at 20°C.

 The so-called 5-day BOD measures the amount of

oxygen consumed by biochemical oxidation of
waste contaminants in a 5-day period.

 The total amount of oxygen consumed when the

biochemical reaction is allowed to proceed to
completion is called the Ultimate BOD.
 COD
 The chemical oxygen demand is the total
oxygen consumed by the chemical
oxidation of that portion of organic
materials in water which can be oxidized by
a strong chemical oxidant.

 The oxidant used is a mixture of potassium

dichromate and sulfuric acid.
 There is no generalized correlation between the 5-day
BOD and the ultimate BOD.

 Similarly there is no generalized correlation between

BOD and COD.

 It is possible to develop such correlations for specific

waste contaminants in a specific waste water stream .

 This is because the composition of any waste water

stream is different.
 Typical BOD values

 Most of rivers have a 5-day carbonaceous BOD below 1 mg/L.

 Moderately polluted rivers may have a BOD value in the range

of 2 to 8 mg/L.

 Municipal sewage that is efficiently treated by a three-stage

process would have a value of about 20 mg/L or less.

 Untreated sewage varies, but averages around 600 mg/L in

Europe and as low as 200 mg/L in the U.S.
Wastewater characteristics
2. NITROGEN (N)
– Organic nitrogen: proteins, amino acids, urea,…;
– Ammonia nitrogen (NH3, NH4+);
– Nitrate- (NO3-), nitrite nitrogen (NO2-);
– Nitrogen gas (N2).

Total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN)

 Nitrogen in the form of organic proteins or their

decomposition product ammonia, as measured by the

kjeldahl Method.
 all organic and inorganic nitrogen forms are converted to

nitrate with a sulfuric digestion.  The nitrates are

photometrically quantified to yield Total Nitrogen
Wastewater characteristics
3 PHOSPHORUS (P)
– Organic phosphorus: foodstuff, toilet wastes,
animal wastes…;
– Orthophosphate (HPO4-): fertilizer;
– Polyphosphate: detergents.

Eutrophication
 Natural process in which surface waters receive

inputs of nitrates and phosphates resulting in

overnourishment of aquatic ecosystems.
-> Algae bloom, anaerobic surface water
Wastewater characteristics
4. Solids

 Wastewater contains a variety of solids varying from rag

to colloidal material
 Content of solids in wastewater is often used to assess
the reuse potential of a wastewater and to determine the
most suitable type of operations and processes for its
treatment

 Imhoff cone test for settleable solids

 60% of suspended solids in

municipal wastewater are settleable.
0.45~2 μm
 However, TSS and BOD are the two
universally used effluent standards to
evaluate the performance of treatment
plants for regulatory control purposes.
 5..Priority pollutants
 The priority pollutants are a subset of "toxic
pollutants" as defined in the Clean Water Act
(USA) .
 It refers to a list of 129 specific pollutants that
includes heavy metals and specific organic
chemicals.
 These 126 pollutants were assigned a high
priority for development of water quality criteria
and effluent limitation guidelines because they
are frequently found in wastewater.
 Priority pollutants
 Heavy Metals (Total and Dissolved): occur only at
trace levels in water, but are very toxic and tend to
accumulate; As, Cd, Cr, Pb, Hg, Zn
 Pesticides: DDT, Aldrin, Chlordane, Endosulfan,
Endrin, Heptachlor, and Diazinon
 Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): a family
of semi-volatile organic pollutants; two main sources :
spilled or released petroleum products and combustion
products that are found in urban runoff.
 Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs): widespread use in
electrical transformers and hydraulic equipment