Performance Monitoring and Evaluation of Sewage Treatment Plant

Abstract

The successive stages of the treatment at sewage treatment plant reduce the quantity of suspended solids, organic matter content, nutrient constituents, microbial load and bio-chemical oxygen demand of the sewage, so that the polluting strength of the final effluent becomes quite less as compared to the influent received. A performance efficiency investigation was conducted on the sewage treatment plant located at Thapar University campus which treats sewage through Up flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor and facultative pond. Samples were taken from 4 stages of treatment over a period of six months and were subjected to microbiological and physio-chemical examination to find the reductions in the level of pollutants. The parameters studied are Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), total phosphorous, total nitrogen, total suspended solids, MPN. The data gave a general picture of the extent to which treatment reduced the parameters at various treatment units of the plant. BOD, COD MPN and nutrients in the treated effluent were 21.51mg/L, 42.33 mg/L, 11.84 log units, 9.64 mg/L respectively. BOD removal efficiency of STP was 81.08%, COD removal efficiency was 83.6%, pathogen removal efficiency was 98.86% and nutrients removal efficiency was 51.73%.