Design of Wastewater Bioremediation Plant and Systems

So far we have established that bioremediation of industrial wastewater, the likes of which we get from the mining, metallurgical, civil, and construction industries, faces the challenges of flow, unsteady effluent quality, stalling of biochemical reactions, slippages, and pH control, etc. Much of the problem is generated from the exhaustion of essential nutrients like C, N, and others. So we have proposed a dosing mechanism, suitable nutrient design and delivery; the result is highly encouraging. The design of a biological wastewater treatment plant—the focal point of this chapter—requires the consideration of certain parameters such as area availability, site characterization, characteristic flow rate, retention time, pH, organic loading rate, and treated water discharge quality. Selection from different combinations of processes and unit design is based on criteria like reliability, cost-effectiveness, performance, adaptability to the influent quality variation, ease of construction, labor skills, sludge, energy requirement, etc. In addition, economic feasibility should also be considered in the complete design.