Chemically enhancing primary clarifiers: model-based development of a dosing controller and full-scale implementation

Chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) can be used to mitigate the adverse effect of wet weather flow on wastewater treatment processes. In particular, it can reduce the particulate pollution load to subsequent secondary unit processes, such as biofiltration, which may suffer from clogging by an overload of particulate matter. In this paper, a simple primary clarifier model able to take into account the effect of the addition of chemicals on particle settling is presented. Control strategies that optimize the treatment process by chemical addition were designed and tested by running simulations with this CEPT model. The most adequate control strategy in terms of treatment performance, chemicals saving, and maintenance effort was selected. Full-scale implementation of the controller was performed during the autumn of 2015, and the results obtained confirmed the behaviour of the controlled system. Practical issues related to the implementation are presented.