Studies on in-situ measurement and on-line assesment of microbial Biomass for predicting the treatment efficiency in a municipal sewage Plant

Abstract

The importance of instrumentation, control and automation at municipal sewage plants has increased as a result of stringent treatment requirements and complexity of the process involved. Sustained efforts have been made in the recent years on the reliability and accuracy of online assessment methods for predicting the process performance and treatment efficiency in municipal sewage plants. Development of feasible soft sensors for different purposes in sewage treatment plants has, as well made operation of the plants more advanced. However, critical review of literature has revealed that the on-line biomass measurement is very scarcely adopted and used for the full-scale municipal sewage treatment plants, inspite of the risk due to shock loads and operational failures leading to irreversible operational and economic loss. Hence, in this study a design and application of microbial sensor was considered for maintaining consistent treatment efficiency in municipal sewage plants.