Working in a Sewage Plant Treatment, If You Know How to Observe Biological Phases, You are Destined to Be a Good Candidate!
It is well known that water treatment equipment requires operation and maintenance. Otherwise, who knows if the return pump will suddenly fail and spray mud all over the face of the leader who came to inspect. . . .
What is more difficult to operate than the equipment is the sludge. In a sense, it can even be said that the main job of working in a sewage plant is to fight wits and courage with the sludge. If the operation is not good, it is easy to encounter this situation - the sludge is still alive, but you are living a life worse than death.
What is more difficult to operate than the equipment is the sludge. In a sense, it can even be said that the main job of working in a sewage plant is to fight wits and courage with the sludge. If the operation is not good, it is easy to encounter this situation - the sludge is still alive, but you are living a life worse than death.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition, there are MLSS, MLVSS, return sludge concentration, sludge load, volumetric load, hydraulic retention time, sludge retention time, sludge age, etc.
These data determine the macroscopic operation status of the entire water treatment, but if you want to see how the sludge is growing, you have to use another method - microscopic examination.
Looking directly at the sludge in the microscope is similar to how you feel when you look at foreigners.
In normal sludge, under a microscope, you can see sessile ciliates stuck to the sludge everywhere, such as the genera of Campanula and Cladosporium, which look like clusters of plants growing out of the soil.
If the system is just starting to run, during the aeration startup phase, the sludge bacterial floc state is not very stable. At this time, you can see a bunch of hairy mosaics swimming around under the microscope. These are swimming ciliates, such as Nephridia and Paramecium.
If there is insufficient aeration in the aeration tank and an anaerobic reaction occurs, a group of weird-looking mosaics, like twisted-head worms with their necks twisted, can be seen under the microscope.
If aeration is excessive and the sludge settling ability deteriorates, a lot of very abstract looking amoebas and rotifers with wheel-like heads that can rotate can be seen under the microscope.
If the concentration of organic matter in the incoming water is too low, many Euplotes that look like shrimps will be seen under the microscope.
If you are unlucky enough to see many flagellates that look like tadpoles with tails swinging back and forth (usually only the genera of Bonyna and Trichomonas), be careful, as this indicates that there is a problem with the performance of the activated sludge.
There is also a worst case scenario, where your vision is completely empty and the normally lively protozoa and metazoa are nowhere to be found, which means that the activated sludge is in an extremely deteriorated state. Therefore, regular microscopic inspection is a good habit, which helps to solve problems when there are problems during operation, and can also prevent problems before they occur when there are no problems.