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Overview of Real Time Monitoring Technologies and Case Studies of The Applications
Overview of Real Time Monitoring Technologies and Case Studies of The Applications
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
Over the last three decades, online sensors have become an emerging area for water industry
through more sophisticated microprocessor driven units, improved communication protocol and
software integration (WERF, 2011). In the current market place, there are many sensors available
and according to a recent – but not public – industrial market analysis, there are nearly 100
sensor manufacturers in the world. The advancements range from automated laboratory
analyzers to in-situ sensors that can be placed directly into the process stream. Online sensors
are becoming more common and affordable in the municipal market such as ion-selective
electrode probes for ammonia monitoring and UV probes for nitrate and nitrite monitoring
(Rieger, et al. 2002). Due to the real time or near real time information collected from online
instrumentation, it offers many advantages over traditional grab sample analysis, such as
detecting toxic shock loadings and act as up early warning devices (Love et al., 2009), better
process control to change chemical feed rates, air supply, solid inventory, and minimize
compliance violation and save energy cost (WERF, 2011).
Recently, The Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) has conducted a thorough
evaluation of continuous sensors and monitors application through literature review, end user
experience, project workshops, and case studies throughout the world (WERF, 2014). Not only it
provided comprehensive information on commercial availability of sensors and their
applications, accuracy, and maintenance requirements, but general satisfaction and challenges
from end users were also included in this report.
This paper presents a summary of online instrument application in the following three areas: (1)
detecting influent variations and toxic shock loadings, (2) enhanced biological nutrient removal
process control, and (3) water quality monitoring at a watershed level.
Most of the water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) has large influent variations and
chemical spills that are associated with organic loadings. Many organic compounds have
characteristic UV absorption spectrums, which means the intensity of the light attenuation can,
be correlated with the organic load. These parameters to measure the organic load of influent
water such as Total Organic Carbon (TOC), Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), Chemical
Oxygen Demand (COD) and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), are valuable for monitoring
and protection of WRRFs from industrial dischargers, aid in process control (e.g. activated
sludge process), and chemical feed control (e.g. biological nutrient removal [BNR]) to maintain
desired quality for final treated effluent or purified water.
Depending on the specific compound characteristics, wastewater treatment process has different
removal efficiencies regarding the compounds’ biodegradability. A common indicator of
biodegradability for organic compounds is the ratio of BOD/COD, which represents the amount
of organic compound that can be biodegradable in a specific waste stream. Typical values for
BOD/COD ratio for raw municipal wastewater ranges from 0.3 to 0.8. If the BOD/COD ratio for
raw influent wastewater is 0.5 or greater, the waste is considered to be easily treatable by the
biological process. If the ratio is below about 0.3, either the waste may have some toxic
compounds or acclimated microorganisms may be required for stabilization (Metcalf & Eddy
2003).
Besides hydraulic and ammonia and BOD spikes that WRRFs often experience, another type of
loading is toxic chemicals. When toxic shock events occur, operators often do not know which
actions to take because limited information is available. Love and coauthors have developed and
demonstrated detailed response protocols for a biological treatment process upset for different
WRRFs and toxic chemical shock (Love, et al. 2009). Some major and emerging sensor/on-line
instrumentation manufactures including Xylem, Hach, S::CAN, ZAPS, and GE have been introduced
recently to the municipal market to help monitor organic loadings and toxic chemicals. Examples
of the instrumentation suppliers and models are listed in Table 1.
PARAMETERS
Organic Inorganic General Microbial
Nitrite/Nitrate
Temperature
Conductivity
Ammonia
Turbidity
Chlorine
Ortho P
SAC254
Nitrate
E. coli
CLEANING MEASURING OTHER
BOD
ORP
DOC
COD
TOC
TSS
DO
pH
MNFR NAME/MODEL MECHANISMS PRINCIPLES INSTALLATION CONSIDERATIONS/REFERENCE
Xylem NiCaVis 701 IQ NI Ultrasonic UV-Vis/UVA Inline
Hach UVAS Self-cleaning Wiper UV 254 nm with In-line or flow
System 550nm through
compensation
S::can Carbo::lyser™ II / III automatic cleaning UV-Vis In-line Remote online monitoring
with compressed air spectrometry
ZAPS LiquID Automatic self-cleaning broad multi- flow-through
cycle with additional frequency optical sample stream
kits measurement and
algorithmic
software analysis
GE wet chemical This new process patented Could analyze up to five sample streams
oxidation technique removes sample and Supercritical with just one instrument, eliminating
precipitated impurities Water Oxidation sample matrices contamination and
between each (SCWO) providing reliable, long-term system
analytical run technique performance.
The BOD and COD can be calculated
based on pre-calibration of the
relationship between TOC and BOD or
COD.
For the activated sludge treatment process, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), pH, Mixed Liquor
Suspended Solids (MLSS), sludge blanket sensors have been trialed and installed extensively to
help control activated sludge process and operate the system efficiently (Lu et al., 2014 and
WERF, 2011). With state regulators taking a closer look at the quality of their receiving waters,
utilities have started to optimize existing treatment processes and plan their upgrades and
expansions to include treatment processes to meet current compliance issues as well as those
water quality standards anticipated in the future.
The most commonly implemented energy saving strategy for BNR process is to incorporate DO
sensors to fine tune aeration needs while using the ammonium sensors to trim back aeration even
further while still completely nitrifying in the system (Water Online, 2014). In addition, reliable
online sensors such as nitrate, oxidation reduction potential (ORP), and phosphorus with
advanced control create optimum conditions or zones for nutrient removal bacteria such as
phosphorus-accumulating organisms (PAOs), ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite
oxidizing bacteria (NOB) and denitrification bacteria to growth at optimum growth rate, provide
valuable feedback on the status of biological nutrient removal and greater resolutions of the
operating conditions (Bob Dabkowski, 2012; Shaw et al., 2009). For example, DC Water has
used a combination of online sensors extensively including TSS analyzers, turbidity sensors, pH,
ammonia analyzers, and nitrate analyzers for feed forward calculation of supplemental carbon,
methanol trimming down and aeration control (WERF, 2011)
Table 2: Summary of Common Online Instrumentation at WRRFs, Use, and Sampling Locations
Nitrate Control carbon supplementation in feed-forward • At end of denitrification zone for control of recycle
and/or feedback control applications in pumps and determination of DO interference from
nitrification/denitrification systems. Control of main MLSS recycle stream
liquid stream Modified Ludzack-Ettinger (MLE) • At end of aeration for feed forward control of
processes. Troubleshooting information when plant is methanol addition for denitrification post anoxic zone
not meeting Total Nitrogen removal goals. • In effluent for monitoring
Orthophosphate Used to control chemical addition for phosphorus 1. TP in influent for trending
precipitation and to monitor phosphorus release and 2. In anaerobic zone to measure release
uptake in Enhanced Biological Phosphorous Removal 3. End of activated sludge basin ( phosphorus uptake)
(EBPR) systems. Also used to monitor phosphorus into 4. Post clarifiers for feed forward control of Tertiary
and RO system to alarm upstream process upset to phosphorus removal installations
prevent excessive scaling. 5. Post filtration for monitoring
pH and Alkalinity Controls alkalinity supplementation to maintain 1. Influent and end of aeration basin for alkalinity
conditions for nitrogen removal addition when required
2. Post filtration for monitoring and possible chemical
addition to control effluent pH
3. Sidestream nitrogen control processes and chemical
alkalinity supplementation
TSS In-basin TSS probes to monitor MLSS and RAS TSS 1. Basin MLSS and RAS stream
concentrations and to automate sludge wasting to 2. Secondary clarifier effluent
maintain constant MLSS or constant process SRT. 3. Filter backwash
4. Dewatering system return liquid stream
Turbidity Guide to monitor solids removal performance 1. Final effluent to tertiary treatment
2. Effluent after tertiary treatment
3. Can be used to control chemical addition to optimize
tertiary treatment turbidity removal
UV Absorbance Could be used to identify sudden changes in soluble 1. Industrial inputs on raw wastewater– probably specific
organics or potential introduction of hazardous target wavelengths of know compounds in industrial
components upstream of WWTP or indication of discharge
breakthroughs into treated effluent. 2. Tertiary and/or Final Effluent
The overarching goal for Clean Water Act (CWA) is to improve water quality in receiving
streams and watersheds. Municipalities and utilities are charged with meeting CWA
requirements within their communities. However, it is often challenging to identify pollution
source(s), e.g. wet weather contributions, stormwater and urban runoff, private systems, and
agriculture runoff may contribute to the pollution loading. Therefore, it is critical to identify the
priority source(s) of pollutants prior to developing mitigation projects otherwise; millions of
dollars may be spent without significant water quality improvement. Developing mitigation
strategies based on watershed specific source prioritization allows the utility to tailor the strategy
to targeted sources as opposed to the generalized approach. WERF’s recent study “Transforming
Our Cities: High-Performance Green Infrastructure (INFR1R11)” stated that environmental real-
time monitoring and control with field hardware and software help proactively control green
systems and improve efficiency of the systems (WERF, 2014).
A key element of identify pollution sources are water quality monitoring. While a significant
amount of data have been collected by the water quality professionals to represent snapshot of
water quality conditions, there are many benefits associated with real time monitoring for
watershed assessment:
1. Characterizing baseline water quality conditions and analyzing trends in real time rather
than discrete spot sampling;
2. Advising community regarding the stream water quality and recreational use guidance;
3. Identifying source water problems and the specific sources
4. Validating implementation of watershed plan and measuring the associated ecological
effectiveness
Regarding the online instrumentations at stormwater and CSO/SSOs stations, most of the
projects are still limited to flow or level monitoring. The field instruments face more challenges
on being able to function reliably and robust during extremely high hydraulic loads at storm
events and excessive abrasive material such as sand, gravels, and debris etc in the sewer system.
Additional barriers include potential power failure and vandalism in the field.
The USGS provides monitoring data for temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), conductivity,
at many sites at a fixed interval of 15- to 60-minutes and transmitted to the USGS every hour
(USGS). Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSDGC), partnered with Midwest
Biodiversity Institute (MBI) has started the bioassessment of water bodies for 5 years.
Continuous readings of temperature (°C), conductivity (µS/cm), pH (S.U.), and DO (mg/l) have
been recorded with a YSI 6920 V2 Sonde (“Datasonde”) instrument at Mill Creek, Little Miami,
Great Miami and Ohio Rivers for over 5 years at a short term deployment (about one week
Figure 1 Left, continuous DO results in Taylor Creek, Direct Ohio River Tributaries, and
Reference Sites during 2014. The shaded bars are water quality criteria (D.O.) (Figure adopted
from MBI draft report 2015); right, an overview map of MSDGC’s water quality monitoring
program at Mill Creek Watershed.
Currently, MSDGC, Black & Veatch, some leading sensor companies and some other agencies
are piloting several water quality real time sensors at both receiving streams and CSO/SSO
locations to integrate real time water quality monitoring at Mill Creek watershed. The goal of
this project is to adequately calibrate, verify and run the water quality model in order to
characterize contaminant sources and load allocations at a better resolution and guild watershed
operations on optimize CSO/SSO control from a water quality benefit perspective (Figure 1,
right).
With technology improvements and associated benefits of online sensors, this section lays out a
framework of how to incorporate real time instruments into utilities. Through recommendations
from WERF sensor reports (WERF report, 2014; WERF report, 2011), pilot projects experiences
(Lu et al., 2014), and vendor discussion, this 6-step process helps to better make decisions and
incorporate online sensors to utility routine operations. Figure 2 lays out the 6-step process: (1)
form a sensor team to defining needs and requirements, (2) evaluate sensors through multiple
channels, (3) building a strong business case around it, (4) select the right sensor package that
tailored particularly to the utility’s needs, (5) carefully setting up initially and developing a
robust Standard operation Procedure (SOP), and (6) transform real time data into information
and perform maintenance as needed.
Depending on the utility size and the intent of sensor applications, this sensor team would
include staff with expertise in water quality, electronics, communications, information
technologies, and operations. The team members all need to provide input on developing
monitoring objectives, sensor selection criteria, how the implementation should be
accomplished, and how the data will be used. Examples of monitoring objectives include
whether it’s for process control, regulation and compliance, watershed planning etc. Figure 3
shows an example of selection criteria that tailored to the needs for Mill Creek WRRFs for a
recent pilot project: reliability, calibration/maintenance, accuracy and experience/technical
support (Lu et al., 2014). Within these criteria, reliability and calibration/maintenance were
considered most important and were weighed as such.
Figure 3 Examples of sensor evaluation criteria, developed for a MSDGC’s pilot project (Lu et
al., 2014)
Even though suppliers often provide instruments that are reliable, however, performance largely
depends on the wastewater characteristics, a specific process, piping set up, etc. In addition, there
is no available standard for specification and performance reporting (WERF, 2014). For
example, at primary effluent monitoring location, one major challenge for these new monitoring
technologies is to keep the system from fouling as primary effluent contains a lot of rags and
other materials that could cause fouling very frequently (Lu, et al. 2014). In this situation,
alternative collection methods such as flow through cells or open troughs are required to keep the
sensors clean besides regular cleaning mechanisms. Other factors to consider when selecting the
sensors are (1) the measurement principles behind the sensors, since some sensors may be better
suited for industrial wastewaters, while others are more suitable for domestic wastewater; (2)
cleaning mechanisms (ultrasonic or mechanic cleaning), (3) communication and terminal
compatibility (traditional 4-20mV, wireless such as blue tooth, Modbus, Profibus, Ethernet, radio
transmission, etc.,) with existing plants’ SCADA system.
Due to variation of sensor performance, pilot trials are recommended to validate these sensor
technologies at specific system locations and treatment plants to validate results. Besides
performance validation, pilot project also provides valuable information on reliability of the
sensors during power failure and/or system shut down, building realistic confidence on O&M
requirement and developing cost information for BCE (Figure 4).
When a pilot project is conducted, it is recommended to have at least two months of trial period.
Review data as often as possible and work with the vendor closely to set up the system and learn
the system. This step also reinforces the importance of forming a sensor team. With a well
formed sensor team, operators can collect the right data for evaluation and link performance to
any operation changes; maintenance staff can perform regular checks on sensor fouling and
perform required maintenance; water quality or lab chemistry can perform transitional lab
analysis for data comparison and SCADA staff evaluates communication capacity and make sure
it fits within the SCADA structure in the plant.
Cost
•Select terminal(s), module(s),
•Establish cost for BCE (installation, O&M, etc.) cable(s), sensor(s)
1
•Sensor validation/maintenance
Performance 4.
•Accuracy compared with lab analysis, sensitivity
•evaluate locations
Figure 4. Left, examples of pilot project evaluation objectives; and right: steps to set up a pilot
trial.
Even though the benefit of online instruments are easily to be recognized, however, the cost
could be high depends on the types and numbers of the sensors, communications required to
support the data transport, and the whole software package coming along with the sensors.
Therefore, building a strong business case to identify the drivers and quantify the benefits is
important to justify a specific investment in online monitoring. Examples of justification include
indirect cost such as water security, early warning devices for toxicity controls and better data
and confidence for decision makings on water quality projects. If online sensors could be part of
a big CIP project, that often helps justification.
Step 4: selecting the right sensor package and going through procurement
The sensor package includes probes, communication protocols, cables, terminals etc. When
considering sensor installation, it’s important to consider both immediate needs and future needs,
so WRRFs do not end up with several sensor probes and/or control systems that do not
communicate/compact with each other, this could also cause additional maintenance and
operation confusions.
This step includes initial programming, calibration of the probes, and developing SOP
information that is tailored to the utility and its application.
Once sensor is deployed, it is important to continue fine tune SOPs for maintenance and
calibration and summarize lesson learned. Even with the same instrument, deployment at
different locations may require different maintenance schedules. For instance, several studies
reported that sludge blanket sensor performance largely depends upon environment and the
geometry of the installed location (WERF, 2010)
Many sensor companies offer terminals and software for data acquisition, station control and
data visualization. It’s important to investigate whether it’s compactible with current SCADA or
other central database systems that the plant already have. Figure 5 shows a snapshots of
moni::tool from S::CAN, sensor network from YSI and SC 1000 controller from Hach.
Figure 5: snapshots of moni::tool from S::CAN, sludge blanket profile from YSI IQ sensor
network 2020 XT controller, and Hach SC1000 controller.
This step is to link real time data to process control software and automate operations (if
desirable) in order to improve treatment process reliability and resiliency, maximizing wet
weather throughput and reducing the risk of NPDES permit violations.
The calibration process also needs to be regularly repeated as seasons change (WERF, 2014).
Certain sensor providers have auto-calibration function, but performance also needs to be
verified because standard solution (used for auto-calibration), mechanic parts, seasoning and
temperature could all impacted by the environment. Sensor team should be meeting often to
communicate the operation, maintenance, and data reliability and continue explore how the data
could be used.
SUMMARY
In summary, real time data and smart analytics helps to quickly identify toxic shock loadings, aid
process control at WRRFs, and monitoring water quality at watershed. The gain of this
information is significant as it allows for improved decision-making to help energy and chemical
savings, reliable biological processes and rapid responses to environmental events to proactively
sustain the ecological system, and transparent communication with community members with
real time information from a water quality perspective. However, it’s not a one type fits all
application. A 6-step process should be considered to take full advantage of online
instrumentation: (1) form a sensor team to defining needs and requirements, (2) evaluate sensors
through multiple channels, (3) build a strong business case around this, (4) select the right sensor
package that tailored particularly to the utility’s needs, (5) initial set up and develop a robust
SOP, and (6) transform data into actionable information.
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