The sewage treatment plant can become complicated and troublesome if it is not well planned. As sewage treatment plants come with different technologies, every technology has its list of equipment. Some treatment plants have l more than a dozen pieces of equipment, and they require a workforce to maintain the plant. When you have more than a dozen pieces of equipment, there are high chances of a breakdown. For the equipment breakdown, if you do not have a spare, you have no choice but to stop the plant. If you stop the plant, the treatment does not happen, and you need to arrange an alternative way of disposing of the water—at the same time, getting a workforce is a big challenge as it is challenging to get staff in this field.
Also, most plants do not run and are kept idly because of government rules and high maintenance costs and hassle.
So in this blog, we will look into 5 Ideas on how we can lower the maintenance cost in the wastewater treatment plant.
1st Idea – Selecting a technology with less equipment
When you are planning to construct a sewage treatment, selecting the technology is very important. It is always best to choose technologies where pieces of equipment are significantly less. It may be not very clear when you are only looking at the papers. So it is always best to go to the location and do a site visit before selecting treatment plants. Spending a day or two can save you lots of trouble later.
2nd Idea – Select a treatment plant that runs on Biological treatment
Nowadays, most sewage treatment plants are based on Biological processes rather than a chemical processes. So it is better in a way, but there are two types in the biological approach. They are
- Suspended growth process and
- Attached growth process.
Some technologies use either one or sometimes both. In OxyO, we utilise both these types and precisely activated sludge processes, which has proven to be the best treatment process so far.
3rd Idea – Enough Retention time for the process to happen
In the Biological process, there are two stages of biological treatment that happens, for they are
- Aeration process and
- Nitrification and Denitrification process.
For these processes to be effective, we need enough retention time for the process to happen. In some treatment plant’s designs, enough retention time is not given, which affects the plant’s performance, creating problems and making it cumbersome to set the plant right.
4th Idea – Designing plants by the natural flow
Some treatment plants design uses raw sewage pumps, which sometimes can be avoided. It might be because of various reasons like planning late or architectural fault. Sewage can flow naturally to the treatment plant, and we can avoid the raw sewage pumps. In a sewage treatment plant, raw sewage pumps break down often and avoiding it is the best option.
5th Idea – Reduce workforce by automating the plant
Internet of things (IoT) helps us to operate sewage treatment plants from anywhere. You can get the equipment’s performance and the life and prevent before it creates problems in the functioning of the plant.