Online total organic carbon (TOC) monitoring for water and wastewater treatment plants processes and operations optimization

Abstract

Abstract.Organic measurements, such as biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were developed decades ago in order to measure organics in water. Today, these time-consuming measurements are still used as parameters to check the water treatment quality; however, the time required to generate a result, ranging from hours to days, does not allow COD or BOD to be useful process control parameters -see (1) Standard Method 5210 B; 5-day BOD Test, 1997, and (2) ASTM D1252; COD Test, 2012. Online organic carbon monitoring allows for effective process control because results are generated every few minutes. Though it does not replace BOD or COD measurements still required for compliance reporting, it allows for smart, data-driven and rapid decision-making to improve process control and optimization or meet compliances. Thanks to the smart interpretation of generated data and the capability to now take real-time actions, municipal drinking water and wastewater treatment facility operators can positively impact their OPEX (operational expenditure) efficiencies and their capabilities to meet regulatory requirements. This paper describes how three municipal wastewater and drinking water plants gained process insights, and determined optimization opportunities thanks to the implementation of online total organic carbon (TOC) monitoring.

Long‐Term Trends Show Improvements in Water Quality in the Chicago Metropolitan Region With Investment in Wastewater Infrastructure, Deep Tunnels, and Reservoirs

“…The correlation between TOC and BOD 5 is recognized by the Clean Water Act and allows NPDES permit writers to accept a measurement of TOC in place of BOD 5 in permit reporting. Wastewater treatment plants recognizing this correlation have begun moving toward measuring TOC in place of BOD 5 (Assmann et al., 2017; Babatola & Xu, 2012); therefore, improved operations that reduce BOD 5 concentrations in the effluent of wastewater treatment plants will also reduce TOC concentrations. Tributaries entering Cook County also exhibited decreases in TOC concentrations, which were affected by other wastewater treatment plants outside the MWRDGC's service area, such as the Thorn Creek Basin Sanitary District (upstream of location 52), the Sanitary District of Hammond and the East Chicago Sanitary District (both upstream of location 56), the North Shore Water Reclamation District (upstream of location 13), and the Clavey Road Sewage Treatment Plant (upstream of location 32).…”

Assessing potential aquatic toxicity of airport runoff using physicochemical parameters and Lemna gibba and Aliivibrio fischeri bioassays

“…On the contrary, TOC values can be obtained in hours. Hence, for the operation of the wastewater of the airport, a TOC allows faster management (Assmann et al, 2017 ). It has been reported that both parameters are correlated (Assmann et al, 2017 ; Dubber and Gray, 2010 ).…”

Enhancing Red Yeast Biomass Yield and Lipid Biosynthesis by Using Waste Nitrogen Source by Glucose Fed-Batch at Low Temperature

“…In the first stage of the study, the DPW was characterized by determining the COD (by the dichromate method [27]) using Hach Lange cuvette tests (LCK014, HACH, Loveland, CO, USA) in the Water Centre of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences [28] and the total organic carbon content by the supercritical oxidation method (TOC Sievers Innovox, SUEZ, Paris, France) [29]. The content of reducing sugars (per glucose) was measured spectrophotometrically at λ = 550 nm using 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid [30].…”