Considerations on Applying Practical Control Methods in the Biological Treatment of Wastewaters from Paper Manufacturing

Abstract

Due to high efficiency, in terms of effluent quality, the activated sludge treatment is the most common method for removing the biodegradable impurities from industrial and urban wastewaters. Although these engineering systems of biological wastewater treatments increase the rate of biodegradable substances removing, in most cases, these are rarely able to achieve the maximum performances due to the lack of some fast methods to monitor and control the living biomass. In this context, in present paper are described some methods for evaluation of viability and biological activity of activated sludge, as essential parameters for ensuring the performance of biological treatment process. The proposed methods are based on the determination of metabolically active bacteria in activated sludge, using the activity of dehydrogenase enzymes (Triphenyl tetrazolium chloride TTC method) in the biological treatment of wastewaters generated from the paper manufacturing process.