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Now we are going to study the operational modes of activated sludge

method. In this section, we’ll introduce 10 different modes of activated sludge
method. They are plug flow activated sludge method, complete-mixing activated
sludge method, step feed activated sludge method, Adsorption-regeneration activated
sludge method, extended aeration activated sludge method, high load activated
sludge method Pure oxygen aeration activated sludge method, low pressure shallow
aeration activated sludge method, Deep aeration activated sludge method, and deep
well aeration activated sludge method Let’s start with plug flow activated sludge
method This picture shows detailed process of plug flow activated sludge method The
type of the aeration tank is the key element. When using plug flow activated sludge
method, corridor type aeration tank is often adopted. It usually has a high length-
width ratio. It takes quite a long time for the wastewater to flow from the head
end to the tail end of the tank. Due to this, the oxygen supplying rate and the
oxygen demand rate differs along the long side of the tank. The reason is that
normally the aerators are evenly arranged at the bottom of the tank. After the
wastewater enters the tank, the organic matters in the water start to get degraded.
When the wastewater flows out of the tank, the amount of the organic matters in it
has generally reached our requirement. Thus, the longer the water flows along the
length of the tank, the more the oxygen demand rate reduces. This process will make
the oxygen supplying rate and the oxygen demand rate different from each other.
Knowing this, let’s take a look at the plug flow aeration tank, that is to say the
plug flow activated sludge method. Its most significant advantage is the high BOD5
removal rate. The degree of its wastewater treatment could also be adjusted
flexibly. But it also has the following problems. First, in order to make sure
anaerobic state won’t appear at the head end of the aeration tank, Normally we will
choose a relatively low sludge loading, Which will need larger tank volume and
cover larger area. Second, at the tail end of the tank, the oxygen supplying rate
is probably higher than the oxygen demand rate, Which is a waste of oxygen. Third,
the plug flow aeration tank is less tolerant to impact load. The key parameters of
plug flow aeration tank are listed in the table below. From this table we can find
that the sludge loading ranges from 0.2 to 0.4 kgBOD5/(kgMLSS·d) And the volume
loading ranges from 0.3 to 0.6 kgBOD5/(m3·d) The sludge retention time is 5-15
days, the hydraulic retention time is 4-8 h, And the BOD5 removal rate could
normally reach 85%-95%. The second operational mode is complete-mixing activated
sludge method. Its technical process is shown in this figure. As we can see, the
aeration tank is usually in these two kinds of form. One is called the joint
constructed tank. Sometimes we also call it the aeration settling tank. This is a
round-shaped joint constructed tank. Sometimes joint constructed aeration tank
could also be rectangle-shaped or square-shaped. It consists of two zones: the
aeration zone and the settling zone. Sometimes we can separate the two zones into
two tanks. The aeration tank is designed for aeration and the degradation of the
organic matters in the wastewater. The settling tank is separated from the aeration
tank. The settled sludge will flow back to the aeration tank through sludge
recycling. Surface aeration is usually used in complete-mixing activated sludge
method. Oxygen is supplied through this kind of surface aeration equipment. The
aeration process could also stir and mix the wastewater and the sludge. We will
discuss the surface aeration equipment in detail in further lessons. About the
complete-mixing activated sludge method. Its most significant characteristic is
that we can keep the degradation rate of the organic matters in the reactor in best
condition through adjusting the F/M ratio The other significant characteristic is
that due to its special operation type the wastewater will be diluted by large
amount of mixed liquids in the reactor upon entering the aeration tank, Meanwhile,
it suits perfectly for industry wastewater with high concentration. We have already
learned about its main structure type. The key designing parameters are listed in
the table below. We can see that the sludge loading is 0.2-0.6 kgBOD5/(kgMLSS·d).
The volume loading is 0.8-2.0 kgBOD5/(m3·d), and the sludge retention time is 5-15
days also. The hydraulic retention time is 3-5 h， BOD5 removal rate is 80-90%. The
third operational mode is step feed activated sludge method. We could also call it
the step feed method or multi-feed method. From this flow chart we can see that the
wastewater flows into the aeration tank from three different points. Thus its
oxygen demand rate is separated into three parts. It could meet the requirement of
the oxygen demand rate with a relatively lower oxygen supply. Compared with the
previously introduced plug flow activated sludge method, The step feed method could
significantly diminish the distance between oxygen supply rate and oxygen demand
rate, which could save energy. As to the multi-corridor plug flow activated sludge
method we previously introduced, We can change it into multi-feed method in this
way, as this figure shows. The wastewater flows into the aeration tank from the
head end of each of the corridors. Thus, we can get a multi-feed method, or the so-
called step feed activated sludge method. Its main characteristic is that the
wastewater flows into the tank in a stepped way, This makes the organic loading
along the length of the tank relatively even, and could also solve the conflict
between the oxygen supply rate and the oxygen demand rate, and lower the energy
cost. Since the wastewater is fed in a stepped way, its tolerance to impact load is
also improved. Its designing parameters are shown in the following tables. The
fourth operational mode is the adsorption-regeneration activated sludge method. We
could also call it the bio-sorption method or the contact stabilization method. In
the activated sludge system, when the wastewater touches the activated sludge,
during the first 10-30 minutes, the activated sludge which has a very strong
adsorption ability due to its high specific surface area, will adsorb most of the
suspended matters and the colloform matters into its zoogloea in this very short
time, and lower the BOD5. But, the adsorbed organic matters haven’t got degraded.
With time passes, the BOD5 of the mixed liquid will rebound sometimes. From then,
the BOD5 will start to get really degraded. This is a figure from a wastewater
degradation experiments, using activated sludge. As we can see from it, if we
shorten the time interval between the organic matter concentration test, we would
get the first curve, which is the blue one. We could find out that the
concentration of the organic matters descends with the time passes. And the curve
is relatively smooth. But, actually, if we further shorten the intervals, we will
find that the concentration of the organic matters changes in a way as the yellow
curve shows. A valley value may appears during the first 10-30 minutes. using its
high specific surface area, which makes the concentration of the organic in the
wastewater reach the minimum value. During the time when organic matters are being
slowly degraded, some of it will be released and return back to the mixed liquid.
This causes the rebounds of the organic matter concentration after this the real
degradation process begins. So we could separate the degradation process simply
into two phases. The first phase is the adsorption phase, the second phase is the
degradation phase. The adsorption ability of activated sludge is limited by the
characteristics of the wastewater, mainly affected by the concentration of
suspended matters and the molloform organic matters. The state of the activated
sludge also affects the ability. If the activated sludge has already adsorbed large
amount of organic matters, without abundant regeneration aeration, it won’t have
the ability of adsorption. Through adequate regeneration aeration, when the
activated sludge has entered the endogenous respiration period its strong
adsorption ability will restore. Using this activated sludge adsorption-
biodegradation process, adsorption-regeneration method is created. This is its
technical process. We could see that the aeration tank of the adsorption-
regeneration method is separated into two parts. The first is the adsorption tank,
the second is the regeneration tank. The wastewater is thoroughly mixed with the
activated sludge in the adsorption tank. With high adsorption ability of the
activated sludge, The activated sludge will adsorb the organic matters in the
flocs. After the secondary sedimentation tank, the effluent will be discharged. The
activated sludge which adsorbed large amount of organic matters will flow into the
regeneration tank to get aerated. When its adsorption ability has restored, we send
some of it back to the adsorption tank. And we discharge the rest of the sludge as
excess sludge. Or, we could set up a technical process as the second figure shows.
The wastewater flows into the aeration tank from the tail, and the tail part of the
tank will be adsorption part. The head part of the tank will be the regeneration
part. Then we get an adsorption-regeneration system. The main advantages of
adsorption-regeneration method is that the wastewater is completely mixed with the
activated sludge, costing only very short time, which makes the adsorption tank
very small. And the regeneration tank accepts only high concentration recycling
sludge. The volume of the regeneration tank is also very small. The total volume of
the adsorption and regeneration tank is still
smaller than the traditional aeration tank. So the capital expenditure of this
method is relatively low. Since the adsorption and the regeneration are separated,
this method’s tolerance to impact load is impressive. When the activated sludge is
poisoned by toxic substances in the wastewater, the sludge in the regeneration tank
could make up for it. Its main disadvantages is that it is relatively less
effective than traditional method. This is because that adsorption is not an actual
degradation process, and the time of the adsorption is hard to control. Thus its
discharge water quality isn’t as good as the traditional discharge water quality.
Besides, this method will get less affective when treating wastewater with high
dissolved organic matter contents. Its designing parameters are shown in this
table. We can see that in the adsorption tank, its sludge concentration, namely the
MLSS, is approximately 1000-3000 mg/L. In the regeneration tank, the sludge
concentration could reach 4000-10000 mg/L. The aeration time in the adsorption tank
is normally 0.5-1.0 h. The regeneration tank is 3-6 h. The BOD5 removal rate is
between 80%-90%.