Understanding Hydraulic Loading in Wastewater Treatment Plants

Blogs / Understanding Hydraulic Loading in Wastewater Treatment Plants

Wastewater treatment is one of the most important needs of the 21st century.

The population explosion, rapid urbanization, industrialization, and changing lifestyles all across the globe have contributed to the generation of a large quantity of waste.

Wastewater poses a serious threat to the human population, animals, plants, and the environment if left untreated. Therefore, wastewater treatment plants need to be efficient and perform at their best always.

There are several parameters that help to gauge the performance of a wastewater treatment system. One of them is hydraulic loading.

In a wastewater treatment process unit, hydraulic loading is known as the volume of wastewater applied to the surface of the processing unit per time period.

Wastewater treatment systems often take loading rates to determine if the system may or may not clog.

For example, at a given location or residential area, the unit water consumption of a place has to be determined because it translates into the amount of wastewater generated in the area.

Depending on the sanitation facilities, wastewater discharge process, and sanitary habits, the hydraulic load of the treatment plant located at that place can be determined in a given time frame.

Several factors like population growth, development of water supply systems, and sewage systems have caused the amount of waste generated to increase.

It has propelled wastewater inflow to the treatment plants to the maximum limit and beyond.

In other cases, water outside of sewage, like rainwater, may run down and increase the average inflow of wastewater every day. It may lead to hydraulic overload, affecting the performance of the system.

Also, wastewater treatment systems should be able to handle the variable flow rates of wastewater and daily fluctuations effectively.

It has been observed that peak influent flow rates, suspended solid loading, and BOD sometimes rise three times more than the average value. Therefore, it is important that treatment systems can withstand such stress in unsteady conditions.

In a wastewater treatment process, biological treatment or secondary treatment of wastewater is the most important process.

The natural microorganisms break down the organic waste present and release carbon dioxide and water as the by-product of the degradation process.

This process is essential to attain the standards based on which the effluent is released into the environment.

Aerobic Wastewater Treatment

An increased flow rate that is beyond the capacity of the treatment plant can cause problems. In such cases, wastewater may reach those zones in the system where natural microorganisms are absent or unreachable.

At the same time, the severe hydraulic load can affect the performance of microbes as well. Such stress can cause cell death of conventional microbes. It may lead to deterioration in the quality of effluent released.

A large amount of accidental water in-flow to treatment plants always causes a variable volume of wastewater to be processed.

Upgrading or re-designing plants to handle hydraulic overload is not viable as well as feasible. Therefore, urgent innovative solutions can be used to improve the performance of wastewater treatment plants.

Organica Biotech is one of the leading companies with highly effective wastewater treatment solutions. Cleanmaxx is one such product that consists of specialized strains of microbes.

It can survive in the wastewater and perform the waste degradation function under shock loads like hydraulic loads and organic loads.

It minimizes sludge production, helps in BOD removal, and prevents noxious gases like ammonia. You can use Cleanmaxx to improve the performance of wastewater treatment plants and negate the effects of hydraulic loading.