Real-Time Detection of BOD Spikes
Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) require active monitoring of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) to ensure compliance with local regulations and to maintain the health of the biological processes that treat wastewater. WWTPs rely on active biological processes at various stages of the treatment process to break down pollutants, all of which require a certain amount of “food” in the form of organic material to keep the biology active and at a steady state. If the plant receives too much incoming organic material, or material that is incompatible with the biology occurring in the treatment processes, it can lead to a plant upset causing serious damage to the treatment processes and limiting the effectiveness of the plant’s overall treatment. In worst case scenarios, this can lead to plants discharging untreated wastewater into natural water systems, disrupting the natural water systems and risking the health of aquatic plants, animals, and the humans that rely on that water system for recreation or drinking water.
BOD is the traditional analysis method for determining the loading of organic material throughout a treatment plant. Operators will determine BOD for the purposes of reporting plant performance to local regulatory authorities, and often the BOD results are also useful for optimizing plant performance. The main limitation in how useful these results can be is the length of time for traditional BOD analysis, which is typically 5 days. Because of this long turnaround time on results, traditional BOD cannot be used to actively monitor a plant, therefore a need for rapid BOD analysis methods to provide plant operators with real-time data on their BOD loading has arisen.
MANTECH’s PeCOD Analyzer provides a rapid, accurate BOD results in only 10-15 minutes, making it the optimal tool for treatment plant operators looking to actively monitor BOD loading. Recently, a utility in England purchased the MO1000 PeCOD Analyzer to actively monitor the influent BOD for wastewater entering a rural treatment plant which discharges into a natural water system. They were having a problem with an industrial facility located within their catchment area, where this facility was illegally dumping wastewater with significantly elevated BOD, with organic material in a form that was not suitable for the type of treatment at the WWTP. The utility was having trouble catching these spikes of BOD in the influent, as the industrial facility was performing the illegal discharging during hours where no operators were at the treatment plant, and the spikes were leading to many plant upsets.
After installing the MO1000 PeCOD Analyzer, they were able to autonomously monitor the incoming BOD loading to the plant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing insight to the hours where no operators were present. With this real-time data, they were able to catch the industrial facility in real time during several instances of illegal discharging during off-hours. The utility successfully brought the industrial facility owners to court and using the evidence of illegal discharges, were able to hold them accountable and ensure any future discharging was within compliance limits and reported pro-actively to the utility. The MO1000 PeCOD Analyzer enabled the utility to prevent future upsets, providing significant cost savings and protecting the natural water systems in the area.
1/10/2025
