Modeling of contaminant-removal from wastewater

in a secondary clarifier by sedimentation

Roman Filimonov and Sugam Shukla
Abstract
Separation of flocs from water in a circular secondary clarifier was studied numerically in COMSOL. The
two-phase flow consisting of water and dispersed solid particles was modeled using the Mixture Model.
The influence of flow velocity and tank geometry on the separation efficiency was investigated. It was
found that the clarifier performance can be improved by adjusting inlet and outlet flow rates for the
incoming sludge and sedimented flocs. The simulations showed that with decrease of the velocity of the
incoming sludge and outlet velocity of the settled flocs from, respectively, 1.25 to 1 m/s and 0.05 to 0.04
m/s, the separation efficiency of the tank increased by about 10% to 90.70%. Furthermore, by installing
a baffle across the tank, the separation efficiency increased further and approached 98%.

Keywords: multiphase flow, Mixture Model, Hadamard-Rybczynski drag law, CFD, sedimentation, separation efficiency.

Introduction
Wastewater treatment is a several-step process for removing contaminants. There are various process
units based on different water treatment principles or combination of them, such as filtration, flotation
and gravity settling [1]. Sedimentation is the process of separation of solid particles from the
surrounding liquid of higher density. In a clarifier (settling tank) where the flow velocity is very low, the
gravity causes the solid particles to settle to the bottom of the tank. Then, the settled particles are
removed from the tank, and the liquid is thus clarified [2]. Design and operation characteristics of such
systems should be considered properly in order to achieve high separation efficiency. In this work, the
separation of flocs from water in a circular secondary clarifier is considered. The effect of flow velocity
and tank geometry on the separation efficiency is studied by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics
(CFD).

Model
COMSOL software was used to simulate sedimentation process in the clarifier. Figure 1 shows 2D
axisymmetric model used in the CFD calculations.

Constant physical properties were assigned to the fluid and solid phases. The water had density (  c )
and viscosity (  ) of 1000 kg/m3 and 0.001 kg/m-s. The density of the solid material (  d ) was set to
1100 kg/m3. The flocs were assumed to have a spherical shape with constant diameter ( d d ) of 0.0002
m. The fluid flow was simulated by employing the multiphase-flow Mixture Model, which is well suited
for small particles in liquids [3]. For the turbulence closure, the standard k-ℰ model was used. The effect
of the gravity ( g ) was included. The computations were done in a time-dependent mode.
Figure 1. 2D axisymmetric geometry of clarifier used in CFD calculations. The clarifier has a diameter of 24 m and a
gently sloping bottom, which makes the dept vary between 3.3 and 4 m. Sludge, consisting of a mixture of solid
flocs and water, enters through the inlet in the middle of the tank. Inlet diameter: 0.4 m. Settled flocs are removed
from the tank through the sludge outlet. Sludge outlet diameter: 1 m. Peripheral outlet is for purified water.
Peripheral outlet hydraulic diameter: 0.8 m.

The continuity and momentum equations for the mixture are

(  c   d )  d (1  cd )u slip  Dmd d    c   u  0

u   D d  D d 
  u  u  p  (   T ) 2u  g     cd 1  cd  u slip  md  u slip  md 
t   1  cd  d  1  cd  d 
where c and d are the volume fractions of water and solid particles, p is the pressure, u is the mass-
averaged mixture velocity, 𝝆 is the mixture density, cd is the mass fraction of the dispersed phase, and
Dmd is the turbulent dispersion coefficient:

c  c u c   d  d u d   
u ,   c  c  d  d , cd  d d , Dmd  T
   T

where  T is the turbulent particle Schmidt number (=0.35), and  T is the turbulent viscosity:

k2
T  C

The volume fraction equation for the solid phase is

d
   (d u d )  0
t

The volume fraction of water phase is calculated then as

c 1  d

The relationship between the velocities of water ( u c ) and solid particles ( u d ) is defined as

Dmd d
u d  u c  u slip 
(1  cd ) d
The transport equations for the turbulent kinetic energy k and its dissipation rate  are

k    
  u  k        T k   Pk  

t  k  

      2
  u          T    C 1 Pk  C 2

t     k k

where Pk is the production of turbulence kinetic energy:

 
Pk  T u : u  u
T

The default values for C  , C 1 , C 2 ,  k and   were used [4].

The relative velocity between the phases was determined based on the Hadamard-Rybczynski drag law
for solid particles with Reynolds number less than 1 [5]:

   d d d2
u slip   p
18

The suitability of the above formulation was verified by performing simulations using the Schiller-
Naumann drag model, which is valid also for higher particle Reynolds numbers. The respective results
were found in agreement with those obtained by using the Hadamard-Rybczynski model under the
same flow conditions.

Velocity inlet boundary conditions were applied to the inlet (see Figure 1). Along with the flow velocity,
values for the turbulence length scale and turbulent intensity were specified at the inlet. The values of
0.07*0.2m and 0.05 were defined for, respectively, the turbulence length scale and turbulent intensity.
The volume fraction of solid particles in the influent flow was constant of 0.003. Zero pressure was set at
the peripheral outlet, and outlet velocity was defined at the sludge outlet. No-slip boundary conditions
were set at the walls of the tank, and the slip condition was defined on the free surface. r=0 was
considered as a symmetry boundary.

Performance of the clarifier was assessed by evaluating the flocs separation efficiency:

m s ,in  m s , peripheral_ outlet

 sep   100%
m s ,in

 s ,in and m
where m  s , peripheral_ outlet are the mass flow rates of solid particles at the inlet and the peripheral
outlet respectively.

Results and discussion

Meshes of different size were tested to determine the optimal resolution for the simulations. In the grid
dependency test, the inlet and sludge outlet velocities were fixed to 1.25 m/s (Re = 0.5*106) and 0.05
m/s, respectively. For each mesh, a finer grid resolution was used in the near wall areas, where the
gradients are greatest. The separation efficiency was calculated for each mesh setup, see Table 1.
 Number of
Mesh setup  sep [%]
elements
I 30000 80.25
II 25000 80.56
III 11000 80.15
IV 5000 81.47
Table 1. Separation efficiency for different grid sizes.

The difference between the separation efficiency values for setups I, II and III was less than about 0.5%,
while the efficiency value in case of setup IV deviated at least by more than 1% from the rest values.
Thus, grid resolution from mesh setup III was found to be optimal in terms of both accuracy and
computational cost, and therefore it was selected for all the simulations in this work.

It was necessary to simulate 12 hours in order to reach a steady state solution. Figure 2 shows velocity
vectors of the mixture and the volume fraction of the solid particles, and mixture-velocity contours for
mesh setup III.

Figure 2. Mixture-velocity vectors and volume fraction contours of the solid phase (left) and mixture velocity
contours (right) at 12 hours state.

The incoming solid particles tend to settle in the bottom of the tank due to the gravitational force and
very low flow velocity. Nevertheless, some fraction of the solids is carried through the peripheral outlet
(see separation efficiency in Table 1).

Next, the inlet velocity is decreased by 20% to 1 m/s in attempt to improve the performance of the
clarifier. The velocity decrease allowed to increase the efficiency to 93.66%. However, the water flow
rate through the sludge outlet remained at the same level as in the case of the higher inlet velocity, see
Table 2.

Outflow of Outflow Outflow

Inflow
Inlet water of water of solids
of m s ,in  s , peripheral_ outlet
m
velocity (peripheral (sludge (sludge  sep [%]
water [kg/s] [kg/s]
[m/s] outlet) outlet) outlet)
[kg/s]
[kg/s] [kg/s] [kg/s]
1.25 156.61 0.5174 117.73 0.1027 38.911 0.3934 80.15
1 125.29 0.4138 86.382 0.0262 38.934 0.3682 93.66
Table 2. Mass flow rates of the phases through inlet and outlets. Sludge outlet velocity: 0.05 m/s.

In percentage terms, 24.84% and 31.07% of the water amount in the incoming sludge flows through the
bottom outlet at inlet velocities of 1.25 m/s and 1 m/s, respectively. To reduce the amount of water
flowing through the sludge outlet and thus increase the amount of purified water, the bottom outlet
velocity is also decreased by 20% to 0.04 m/s. As a result, the separation efficiency dropped slightly to
90.70%, whereas the flow rate of water through the sludge outlet decreased to 24.81 % of the water
flow rate at the inlet.

In Figure 2-left, it can be seen that solid particles are quite dispersed over the domain since the sludge
flows freely as it enters to the tank. To redirect the sludge current, it is proposed to install a baffle across
the tank as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Mixture-velocity vectors and volume fraction contours of the solid phase (left) and mixture velocity
contours (right) for geometry with baffle at 12 hours state. Inlet velocity and sludge outlet velocities are 1 m/s and
0.04 m/s, respectively.

As can be seen in Figure 3-left, the baffle prevents the dispersion of the flocs over the tank by directing
the flow downwards. This causes more solid particles to settle at the bottom of the clarifier. The velocity
rates remain low as in the non-baffled case, see Figure 3-right. Such configuration provides 98.64%
separation efficiency.

Conclusion
The separation process of solid particles from water in a circular secondary clarifier was modeled in the
COMSOL software. The separation efficiency of the clarifier was evaluated under various flow rate and
design conditions. For the inlet and sludge outlet velocities, respectively, of 1.25 m/s and 0.05 m/s, the
separation efficiency was 80.15%. With decrease of the inlet and sludge outlet velocities by 20%, the
efficiency of the tank increased by about 10%. The baffle installation resulted in further increase of the
clarifier performance. The tank with baffle installed approached the separation efficiency of 98%.

Sedimentation efficiency is thus very sensitive to the design and operation characteristics, and therefore
those should be addressed carefully when the system is developed. The effect of other aspects such as
volume fraction of solid particles in the incoming sludge, or density and size of the dispersed particles
can also be investigated to further study the clarifier performance.

Notation

dd solid particle diameter [m]

cd mass fraction of the dispersed phase [kg/kg]
Dmd turbulent dispersion coefficient [m2/s]
g gravity [m/s2]
k turbulent kinetic energy [m2/s2]
m s ,in mass flow rates of solid particles at the inlet [kg/s]
 s , peripheral_ outlet mass flow rates of solid particles at the peripheral outlet [kg/s]
m
p pressure [Pa]
u mixture velocity [m/s]
uc water velocity [m/s]
ud solid particle velocity [m/s]
u slip slip velocity [m/s]
 turbulent dissipation rate [m2/s3]
c water volume fraction [m3/m3]
d solid particles volume fraction [m3/m3]
 sep separation efficiency [%]
 water viscosity [kg/m-s]
T turbulent viscosity [kg/m-s]
 mixture density [kg/m3]
c water density [kg/m3]
d solid particle density [kg/m3]

References
[1] Hendricks, D. (2010). Fundamentals of water treatment unit processes: physical, chemical, and
biological. CRC Press.

[2] Von Sperling, M. (2007). Basic principles of wastewater treatment. IWA publishing.

[3] Manninen, M., Taivassalo, V., &Kallio, S. (1996). On the mixture model for multiphase flow.

[4] Wilcox, D. C. (1998). Turbulence modeling for CFD (Vol. 2, pp. 103-217). La Canada, CA: DCW
industries.

[5] COMSOL Multiphysics (2013). CFD Module User’s Guide, COMSOL.