Property of Dana Wregglesworth

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Aeration Decoupling
Introduction
Treating water and its close relative wastewater treatment using current technology is
power intensive and costly. Current technology reaches a tipping point at $0.07 / kW -h
when other approaches become attractive. A CleanTech approach yields least cost with no
compromise in water or wastewater treatment quality in the largest market segments by
application.
Background
“Aeration is the process by which air is circulated through, mixed with or dissolved in a
liquid or substance.”
Air is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen with 8 other principal gases present at trace levels.
Nitrogen gas has an atomic triple bond that effectively makes it inert or non-reactive for
all practical purposes in a raw water or wastewater setting.
Specific microbial bacteria called diazotrophs can “fix” nitrogen as ammonium (NH4).
Their symbiotic function is to make nitrogen bioavailable for plant uptake and growth.
So - besides constructed wetlands and some forms of bio-filter’s nitrogen is inert or
useless for water or wastewater treatment purposes.
Oxygen though is the other major component in “air”. It’s present in all major classes of
structural molecules in living organisms, such as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats,
contain oxygen, as do the major inorganic compounds that comprise animal shells, teeth,
and bone.
Oxygen as O2 is produced from water by cyanobacteria, algae and plants during
photosynthesis and is used in cellular respiration for all complex life.
Oxygen is toxic to obligately anaerobic organisms, which were the dominant form of
early life on Earth until O2 began to accumulate in the atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago.
The kinetics or rate of metabolysis of a microbial biomass is 10x faster in the presence of
oxygen when compared to an anaerobic (without oxygen) microbial biomass.
This simple and intuitive truth is why oxygen is the molecule of choice for water and
wastewater treatment. It helps the affected biomass consume much more rapidly influent

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miscible or partly miscible (dissolved) contaminants and thereby remove said

contaminants from the now “treated” water.
Empirically, over a span of decades in the mid 20th century, a certain range of residual
dissolved oxygen was found to be “best” for aeration based technologies. This was
empirically determined to be 2.0 - 3.0 mg/l.
Why? Because the biomass responded well at this “level” or range, the “waste” biomass
(sludge) settled well and could be easily removed from the “treated” water (this range
also prevents a phenomenon called nitrogen bulking or floating biomass which cannot
settle) it was relatively easy to achieve and odorous emissions were substantially
mitigated.
By combining or “coupling” mixing (the biomass has to contact the contaminant long
enough to adsorb, “eat” or metabolize it) with the dissolution of “air” the technology
platform called aeration began.
CleanTech Approach
Until the recent past aeration was inexpensive because the cost of power was low. So
even inefficient aeration techniques were not expensive to buy or to operate. This
situation was particularly important because 90% + of all water / wastewater treatment
systems are owned by municipalities whose revenue is gained by taxation / fees / tolls
paid by the public.
Cheap power is not the case any longer nearly anywhere in the world.
Raising taxes / fees / tolls to pay increasing operating costs is certainly not an admirable
political tactic and very difficult to do in any case.
What to do or how to solve this problem without increasing costs in the face of a
constantly rising population. The same population who both drink water and make
wastewater really does define a CleanTech question with several related CleanTech
answers.
The CleanTech answer is physics based and has a sound scientific basis. This basis
involves mass transfer of gases into liquids. Henry’s Law of gas dissolution in a liquid
and Fisk’s Law of diffusion are not new. They are used everyday in a large set of
industrial applications - most notably semiconductor fabrication and biotech.

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Convincing a conservative marketplace that it can save costs and improve productivity
with unfamiliar CleanTech requires a plan that stepwise proves the plan’s efficacy. We
propose a four step plan as outlined below.
In probable order of importance:
Process Optimization
1) A first answer is optimizing the whole process from a unit function perspective. This
implies using software modeling to find best fits solutions, using existing hardware,
that can give immediate operating cost savings. This impact is normally 5 -10%+
savings year on year. Shockingly few municipalities and nearly no industrial facilities
have done this.
Process Characterization
2) Next - characterizing the influent wastewater for flow and load variations is crucial
and critical. This can be done in conjunction with answer 1 above.
Oxygen Demand Definition
3) Next - characterizing the optimized process’ Oxygen Uptake Rate (OUR) becomes a
real need. Oxygen uptake rate summed with the desired residual Dissolved Oxygen
(DO) defines the process Oxygen Demand (OD). This process OD can then be easily
compared with the existing aeration systems’ Oxygen Transfer Rate (OTR). Subtract
OTR from OD. If the sum is positive then the process is capable of meeting demand. If
negative then the process is not capable of meeting demand and must be changed. We
estimate that 40 - 50% of existing municipal and industrial wastewater facilities have a
shortfall OD. This represents several process problems not least discharge compliance
issues often expressed first as a warm weather odor issue or cold weather ammonia
problem. OUR determination can and should be done in conjunction with answer 2
above.
Aeration Decoupling
4) Mixing energy plus net mass transfer energy for OD when summed equals total
process aeration requirement. Sorry - no acronym for this one. In all instances, without
exception, flow and load vary on at least a diurnal schedule following the populations
work, eating and sleeping schedule. Flow and load also varies seasonally. If industrial
wastewater is part of the flow and load its contribution is highly variable and borders

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on chaotic. This is primarily dependent on production cycle processing, season, utility

costs, etc. When these variables are summed a chaotic or dynamical flow and load
regime is defined.
Intuitively it becomes obvious that designing for peak flow and load conditions solves
the chaotic or dynamical regime conundrum. Yes, this works in a resource unlimited
world with inexpensive power to keep it affordable by the population at large.
In the resource limited and cost sensitive world we now live within this design
approach becomes untenable quickly.
Environmental compliance and very soon, at scale water reuse will require consistent
process performance on a continuous basis. In this situation from a process control
philosophy mixing and OD must become decoupled. Greenfield or new facilities must
begin to design for the least cost option not the peak regime. Brownfield facilities need
not necessarily expand capacity by installing new civil works that cannot be funded or
supported with the assumption of a continually expanding tax base.
Decoupling allows the process to be controlled through separate control points for
flow (mixing) and load (OD). Most current aeration techniques do not allow this
decoupling to occur. The simplest, current approach is the installation of a variable
frequency drive (VFD) on a systems’ blower(s). Unfortunately this does not allow the
precision control necessary to consistently provide both mixing and OD necessary to
solve the chaotic regime described above. Decoupling alone can offer a client a
substantial operating cost savings of 5 - 10% at minimum.
Using these preceding 4 approaches will save a client 5 - 10% in operating cost. If
more savings is desirable or required read on.
CleanTech Aeration Decoupling
Existing, least cost, no risk options for aeration decoupling are a very small population
set.
The best, least cost, no risk approach would be the installation of a fully decoupled
mixing and OD process that allowed process response over the range of low flow /
load to peak flow / load conditions.
Mixing as a process is well understood and can be accomplished for least cost using a
range of mechanical means. Its control point, flow, is well understood and the

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instrumentation necessary to execute successfully is present and understood by most

facilities at least on a monitoring basis. Adding a control circuit is not at all difficult.
The only OD approach with a control response and sufficient range is the precision
injection of pure oxygen as stated previously, the molecule of choice for water /
wastewater treatment. Why? Air is only 21% oxygen by volume. The balance is
nitrogen. Nitrogen is inert from most process perspectives and offers some process
problems. Most notably nitrogen bulking of sludge. Process control logic and
CleanTech least cost philosophy dictates that pure oxygen be used to meet OD
requirements. Is this feasible? Yes, CleanTech available now can provide OD reliably
for least cost.
Pure oxygen OD processes have been in use for 40+ years. This does not make them
mature technologies especially from a least cost CleanTech approach. They have been
overwhelmingly used for land locked installations that have no room for expansion
and that could long ago afford the capital cost for its installation and operation. These
installations were mostly funded by federal grants provided under the auspices of the
original clean water act (circa 1970). Most have not enjoyed process updates, software
optimization and characterization necessary to make them genuinely efficient. This is
unfortunate because it may give the market the impression that this Tech is nextgen
because it can decouple mixing and OD - but offers few other advantages other than
effective odor control.
This is not the case.
This Tech still relies heavily on energy intensive cryogenic on-site liquid oxygen
(LOX) using an air separation unit (ASU) and vaporization (its typical mass transfer is
0.7#O2 / HP-h). Dissolution of oxygen gas into the wastewater relies heavily on
capital intensive (and hazardous) civil construction techniques to capture off gassed
oxygen from the wastewater treatment system basins and re- entrain it for process
efficiency’s sake. The associated process hazard is enough to stop this from ever being
least cost CleanTech.
The rise of on-site concentrated oxygen (using a molecular sieve to strip nitrogen,
water vapor and carbon dioxide from air which yield nearly pure oxygen) has mass
transfer rates in the 3 - 3.5#O2 / HP-h or roughly 5 times more efficient than LOX.
This alone precludes the use of LOX in the marketplace.

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CleanTech Benefits
Also a literature based search will reveal that any pure oxygen based process will yield
30% less waste biomass (sludge) than conventional technologies. This is important and
is a distinct process advantage that translates to nextgen CleanTech. This typically
lowers a facility’s operating costs by 10 - 15% by itself.
Our CleanTech fully decouple mixing and OD by integrating aVFD / flow meter 0 -
10VDC input on all of our products motors. This gives up to 50% turn down / turn up
for mixing purposes and an automatic valve assembly (Oxygen Control Module) that
allow 0 - 100% turn down / turn up that takes a 4 - 20mA input from a DO sensor(s)
suspended in the treatment basins.
Interestingly - we are best in class for mass transfer (# product delivered / unit energy
applied) - our range for net mass transfer (oxygen “manufacturing” dissolution = net
mass transfer) with a range of 5 - 7#O2 / Hp-h versus 2 - 3 or less for either aeration.
All other pure oxygen dissolution technologies which range from 0.15#O2 / HP-h to
slightly over 2#O2 / HP-h. This mass transfer rating offers another substantial
operating cost savings of benefit of, at minimum, 15 - 25%.
This means we can offer our clients a very substantial operating cost savings without
changing their operating conditions in any way.
Other Benefits
• Decoupling with pure oxygen minimizes VOC emissions by preventing nitrogen gas
stripping.
• In load challenged situations where a higher biomass / MLSS is desirable to maintain
compliance simply eliminating nitrogen allows DO to be substantially increased to
levels as high as 2 - 24 mg/l with no process hazard. Remember Henry’s and Fisk’s
Law’s - we are only using dissolution and diffusion in a new, more efficient manner.
• High MLSS conditions with high DO allow the biomass to entrain and adsorb oxygen
thereby substantially mitigating the cost of theoretical increases in OD. This can be as
high as 90% less than predicted. In this situation you are running a high rate bio-
reactor for very little increase in cost.
• Waste biomass or sludge, in this situation, will have very high BOD / COD loads
which makes an ideal feed for a sidestream Anaerobic Digester (AD). Run correctly

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AD makes very efficient and high quality biogas (methane) which can be easily
combusted with an on-site internal combustion (IC) engine for power generation.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained in this paper is for general information purposes only. The
information is provided by Dana Wregglesworh and while I endeavored to keep the information
up to date and correct, I make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied,
about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the paper
or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in the paper for any purpose.
Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

In no event will I be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or
consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or
profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this paper.

The author, Dana Wregglesworth, takes no responsibility for, and will not be liable for, the paper
and its potential applications’ due to technical issues beyond my control.