Today and Tomorrow! Research Prospects for Aerobic Biological Liquid Waste Treatment for Reduction of Carbon Load.

The development of aerobic biological wastewater treatment has reached a critical state. The increased severity of legislative pressure means that performance of waste treatment plants must become ever more efficient if discharge consents are to be met. Treatment plants are now hard pressed to meet the new regime. Over the last thirty years there have been some significant advances leading to substantial improvements in performance. The introduction of different modes of contacting gave a boost to treatment efficiency, as did more sophisticated analysis of both biological and engineering aspects of plant design and operation. However, more recently, the rate of improvement has diminished and today the performance of modern plant is increasing only gradually. Designers and operators are working ever harder to gain even small improvements. As the complexity of biological treatment plants becomes more apparent, the sophistication of the methods needed to analyse and control it increases. In addition, there is a growing demand for process intensification whereby the same throughput can be obtained in smaller plant with associated savings in both capital and recurrent costs.