Environmental and Sanitary Engineering

Lecture 9
 PUMPING

Pumps are important components of most water conveyance systems. They are called upon
to provide the energy to deliver flows ranging from a few gpm to large numbers of cfs. The
primary types of pumps are centrifugal and displacement. Airlift pumps, jet pumps, and
hydraulic rams are also used in special applications. In water and sewage works, centrifugal
pumps are most common.
Centrifugal pumps have a rotating ele­ment (impeller) that imparts energy to the water.

Displacement pumps are often of the reciprocating type, in which a piston draws water
into a closed chamber and then expels it under pressure. Reciprocating pumps are widely
used to handle sludge in sewage treatment works.

Electric power is the primary source of energy for pumping, but gasoline, steam, and
diesel power are also used. Often, a standby engine powered by one of these other forms is
included in primary pumping stations to operate in emergency situations when electric
power fails.
 It is often necessary to accumulate wastewater at a low point in the collection system and
pump it to treatment works or to a continuation of the system at a higher elevation.
Pumping stations consist primarily of a wet well, which intercepts incoming flows and
permits equalization of pump loadings, and a bank of pumps that lift the wastewater from
the wet well. In most cases, centrifugal pumps are used and standby equipment is required
for emergency purposes.

Pumping of sewage may be necessitated by a number of circumstances. The area of

concern may be lower in elevation than the nearest trunk sewer. It may also be that the
area to be served lies outside of the drainage area in which the sewage treatment plant to
be used is located. Such circumstances require pumping sewage flows across drainage
divides. Excavation costs to construct gravity-flow systems may also be such that
pumping is more economical than constructing a gravity sewer.
 Wastewater Treatment Systems
The purpose of municipal wastewater treatment is to prevent pollution of the receiving
waters or reclaim the water of reuse. Characteristics of a municipal wastewater depend to a
considerable extent on the type of sewer collection system and industrial wastewater entering
the sewers. The degree of treatment required is determined by the beneficial uses of the
receiving waters or, in the case of reclamation, the reuse application. Pollution of flowing
waters and eutrophication of impounded waters are particularly troublesome in water use for
water supplies and recreation .

Purpose of Wastewater Treatment

Wastewater from households and industries are collected in a sewer and transported to the
treatment plant. The treated effluent is commonly disposed of by dilution in rivers, lakes, and
estuaries. Disposal to the ocean is through a submarine outfall sewer extending into deep
water .
Three common reuse applications are agricultural irrigation, urban landscape irrigation, and
groundwater recharge.
Water quality criteria have been established by the Clean Water Act for receiving waters to
define the degree of treatment required for disposal of treated wastewater by dilution to
protect prescribed beneficial uses. Effluent standards prescribe the required quality of the
discharge from each treatment plant. The minimum extent of processing is secondary
treatment. Some cities and industries are required to install tertiary or advanced wastewater
treatment processes for removal of pollutants that are resistant to conventional treatment
( removal of phosphorus to retard eutrophication of receiving lakes.

Selection Of Treatment Processes

Conventional wastewater treatment consists of preliminary processes (pumping, screening,
and grit removal), primary settling to remove heavy solids and floatable materials, and
secondary biological aeration to metabolize and flocculate colloidal and dissolved organics
(Fig 9.1). Waste sludge drawn from these unit operations is thickened and processed for
ultimate disposal.
Preliminary Treatment Units
The following preliminary processes are used in municipal wastewater treatment: coarse
screening (bar racks), medium screening, shredding of solids, flow measuring, pumping, grit
removal and pre-aeration.
The arrangement of preliminary treatment units varies depending on raw wastewater
characteristics, subsequent treatment processes, and the preliminary steps employed. A few
general rules always apply in arrangement of units. Screens are used to protect pumps and
prevent solids from fouling grit-removal units and flumes. In small plants a Parshall flumes is
normally placed ahead of constant-speed lift pumps, but may be located after them in large
plants or where variable-speed pumps are used. Grit removal should be placed ahead of the
pumps when heavy loads are anticipated, although the grit chamber follows the lift pumps in
most separate sanitary wastewater plants. Three possible arrangement fro preliminary units
are shown in Figure 9.2
Primary Treatment Units
Primary treatment is sedimentation. In common usage, the term usually includes the
preliminary treatment processes. Sedimentation of raw wastewater is usually practiced in
all large municipal plants and must precede trickling (biological) filtration. Completely
mixed activated-sludge processes can be used to treat unsettled raw wastewater; however
this method is generally used in smaller treatment plants because of the costs involved in
sludge disposal and operation.

Secondary Treatment Units

Primary sedimentation remove 30%-50% of suspended solids in raw municipal
wastewater. Remaining organic matter is extracted in biological secondary treatment to
the allowable effluent residual using activated-sludge processes or trickling filters. In the
activated sludge method, wastewater is fed continuously into aerated tank where
microorganisms synthesize the organics. The resulting microbial floc (activated sludge) is
settled from the aerated mixed liquor under quiescent conditions in a final clarifier and
returned to the aeration tank (Fig 9.1).
 The plant effluent is clear supernatant from secondary settling. Advantages of suspended-
growth aeration are high –BOD removals, ability to treat high-strength wastewater, and
adaptability for future use in plant conversion to advanced treatment.
Trickling filters have stone or plastic media to support microbial films. These slime growths
extract organics from the wastewater as it trickles over the surfaces.
Oxygen is supplied from air moving through voids in the media. Excessive biological
growth washes out and is collected in the secondary clarifier. Two-stage shallow trickling
filters are needed to achieve efficient treatment.

Sludge Disposal
Primary sedimentation and secondary biological flocculation processes concentrate the
waste organics into a volume of sludge significantly less than the quantity of wastewater
treated. But disposal of the accumulated waste sludge is a major economic factor in
wastewater treatment.
flow schemes for withdrawal, holding, and thickening raw waste sludge from
sedimentation tanks are illustrated in Figure 9.3. The settled solids from clarification of
trickling-filter effluent are frequently returned to the plant head for removal with the
primary sludge (top diagram Fig. 9.3).
In the bottom diagram of Figure 9.3 waste-activated sludge is mixed with primary residue
after withdrawal. A holding tank is commonly used in this system arrangement, along with
a thickener. Raw settling maybe stored in the primary tank bottom until processed or pumped
into a holding tank for storage. The withdrawn sludge may be concentrated in a gravity
thickener prior to processing.

All possible sludge disposal processes for a municipal treatment plant must be given careful
consideration. The method selected should be the most economical process, if it is best, with
due regard to environmental conditions. Attention must be given to such factors as trucking
sludge through residential areas, future use of landfill areas, ground-water pollution, air
pollution, other potential public health hazards.