The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
hello scala
nation and welcome to waste water
thursday we have spent this entire week
celebrating
industrial water week we started monday
with pre-treatment
tuesday was boilers yesterday was
cooling
well today is waste water and of course
that has to deal with filtration
clarification coagulation
flocculants aeration microbiological
treatment
filter presses oxidation gray water
black water recycling
equalization basins dissolved air
flotation
systems induced air flotation settling
takes sand filters mixing tanks water
analysis recycling reuse polymers
oh my goodness there’s so much more when
it comes
to waste water so folks all of those
things to say
we are celebrating wastewater thursday
and wastewater is probably one of the
most
complicated aspects of our industry but
i bet we could probably say that for
each and every segment about
industrial water treatment waste water
if everything remains the same
normally the program runs pretty well
the problem is
operators don’t always do the same thing
they don’t always follow our procedures
they might go home a little early one
day so
maybe they make the tank a little bit
more dilute they make the tank a little
bit more
concentrated and that of course plays
havoc
with our program and then they call us
and then we get the privilege of going
in there and trying to figure out
what they said they didn’t do of course
i know
i’m the only one with this issue nobody
else has this problem
i will say when you can automate things
that eliminates that
and that does make our job a little bit
easier well i am kind of sad to say that
we only have two days left to celebrate
industrial water week but i’m not sad
because it’s almost
over i’m sad because i’m having so much
fun bringing this information to you and
looking at all of the posts that you
guys are doing the hashtag
iw20 so folks
i i just think it’s awesome especially
in the year 2020
when we’ve had state home orders we’re
having to work differently we’re having
to go to conferences differently
we can see that we’re all still out
there and we
are industrial water treaters so if you
haven’t
hash tag a picture a video a quote or
something
to iw20 you got today and tomorrow to do
it for those of you that have already
done that
i urge you to continue that process
because i tell you i’m really enjoying
all of those
you know when i think about wastewater i
can’t help but think about one of my
friends
kevin cope and kevin has been
a fantastic board member of the
association of water technologies
he’s also been a fantastic trainer
on the education committee when it comes
to wastewater and kevin of course heads
up that
team where we teach wastewater with the
association of water technologies
well kevin was very gracious and last
year
he came on the show to talk about
wastewater was actually such a good show
we had two parts it was part one and
part two
episode 78 and 79.
so here is a listen into
that episode with kevin cope
so once primary clarification is done we
move into secondary
and secondary clarification is really
where you’re going to take out some of
the dissolved materials
specifically the bod cod things that can
be biologically broken down
all right in our industry i don’t know
what the percentage would be but i don’t
think we’re going to see a lot of the
secondary treatment
we may a lot of a lot of the food plants
almost every food plant
will have secondary treatment and what
happens there
is you have bugs and when i started in
this industry and the first time i heard
somebody call
bugs i just looked at them like really
that’s the word you use and that
is the word that is accepted when we
talk in this industry
so what happens is you have these
aeration pawns where
bubbling air all the time and there’s
bugs in there
and these bugs will eat the organics and
break them down
okay and these bugs will break these
organics down
cleaning the water and then this water
that has all these bugs in it
will be taken and brought into a
clarifier just like we just talked about
where they’ll settle out the clean water
will continue we’ll get into where the
clean water goes in a minute
but the the sludge the bug sludge that
settles to the bottom
that is one of two things can happen to
that
they can either recycle that back to the
beginning of the
secondary treatment or they can waste it
to get rid of some of the bugs now
here’s why this
this is another little way somebody
explained this to me that stuck with me
my entire career
if you think of the biological aerobic
digester
is what is called an aerobic digester
there’s air present as a community
and you think of that as being people
okay and you have these bugs
basically people and you have young bugs
you have medium age bugs and you have
old bugs
and if you think of our society really
the young people the young babies and
stuff really don’t do a whole lot of
work
for the society but now you get to the
middle age you know young adults to you
know
little older adults really who do the
primary work within
our society then you have the elderly
which really don’t do a lot of work
so what happens is in this bug community
now
if you start getting too young the bugs
are too young you don’t get a lot of
work
if the bugs start getting too old you
don’t get a lot of work
work being removed the organics so what
these customers will do
is they’ll take this sludge and they’ll
analyze it and they’ll say well we’re
getting too
old we’re going to waste some of the
sludge to move the
the sludge age more down into the medium
range
and and conversely if we have too young
the sludge
we won’t waste we’ll let those bugs
become
older and become more in that center
group and so
that’s always stuck with me on how to
explain biological treatment
so what you’re trying to do is have a
healthy community of bugs
which break down the organics and and
clean the water and taking the organics
out
and you do that by aeration where you
have the air
just like our society air you have food
food being the waste that’s coming in
and then you have the bugs the
communities
that are breaking this material down and
again that’s called secondary treatment
kevin thanks again kevin’s talented in
wastewater he’s also a very talented
painter
as a thank you for coming on scaling up
h2o he
painted me a scene which i’m actually
looking at right now
across my desk so kevin thank you for
that thank you for contributing to
the wastewater community and i look
forward to seeing you
as soon as we can get back together
again
when was the last time you wish you had
a
t-shirt that could tell the world that
you have the best job in the world
i have received so many compliments
on our first scaling up h2o t-shirt
the only t-shirt ever made specifically
for water treaters that we decided to
come out with our own line of t-shirts
specifically
for you the water treater go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash shop to
see our designs and get
one or all of them for your very own
that’s scaling up h2o.com forward slash
shop well folks something we have been
doing to celebrate each and every day of
industrial
water week is trivia so here we go again
one more installment of industrial water
treatment
jeopardy this bacteria grows in the
absence of free oxygen and derives
oxygen from breaking down
complex substances
what is anaerobic bacteria
the agglomeration of colloidal or
suspended matter
brought about by the addition of some
chemical to a liquid
by contact or other means
[Music]
what is coagulation the biochemical
decomposition of organic matter that
results in the formation of mineral
or simpler organic compounds
[Music]
what is digestion this is what
daf actually stands for
what is dissolved air floatation
the coming together or coalescing of
multiple particles in a liquid
[Music]
what is flocculation so how was your
score today
how did you do on wastewater industrial
water treatment jeopardy again i hope
these questions get you
thinking so you can figure out some new
things that
you can learn and then ultimately teach
that
to someone else well folks each and
every day this week we have been
enjoying a brand new installment of
detective
h2o from our friend james mcdonald
let’s see what detective h2o is up to
today
welcome to detective h2o the case of
breaking free
the rain ran serpentine paths down the
windows of the rusty blue fort as
herbert henry oxidane
pi cwt set waiting for johnny keeland to
open a side powerhouse door
at pork belly’s processing when the
lanky man’s shaggy head popped out
the water detective made a run for it
dodging raindrops the best he could
get in here h2o before you melt i’m
running between the drops
let’s see this reverse osmosis system of
yours right this way
said johnny as he snaked his way through
the building like i said on the horn
this ro system goes south real fast
we’ll clean it
clean it good and a week later maybe two
it’s moping along begging to be taken to
the cleaners again
how do you determine when it needs to be
cleaned well
we’re using the normalization program
provided by the membrane manufacturer
when the normalization permeate flows
drop by 10 to 15 percent
and the pressure drops increased by 15
percent we clean
we’re barely keeping up with the
permeate demand hmm
can you tell me about the water you’re
processing through the ro system
oh yeah we’re the largest pork belly
processing plant this side of the
mississippi
you see that requires a lot of water
we get our water directly from the grace
noel river
after filtration clarification and
disinfection
some of the water comes to this ro
system to make high purity water for us
our silt density index is run daily it
is always spot
on showing good quality water for oral
membranes
our free chlorine test before the ro is
also always spot on
before the dechlorination step you see
yet despite my crew babying the system
the membranes have to be cleaned far
more frequently than we ever imagined
that can’t be
good for them have you sent any of the
membranes out for an autopsy to
determine what is fouling them
yes three times it is always biological
fouling
biological fouling interesting let’s
take a look
i’d like to walk down the length of the
system see the chemical feed points
review your data take a look at the
autopsy reports
and run a few tests myself let’s start
with the walk through
for the next several hours the water
detective got the scoop
on the pork belly’s processing water
treatment system everything appeared to
be shipshape
this was a well-run plant and as far as
he could tell
well-designed the crew’s care and
dedication were obvious
figured out the culprit yet detective
not quite yet
but i have a hunch let’s go collect some
water right before the chlorine
disinfectant is added
we’ll need a clean bucket
after collecting the water sample
detective h2o lined up several beakers
with 100 ml of the water sample in each
prepared a diluted bleach solution and
carefully injected different amounts of
the solution into
each water sample after thoroughly
stirring he started the timer
in the meantime he also tested for
ammonia
earlier the water detective had
calculated the residence time
of the chlorine disinfectant system from
the point of injection to the point of
dechlorination just before the ro system
it was 25 minutes after this time
elapsed
he tested each 100ml water sample for
free chlorine
then he fired up his computer barely
more than an abacus
and graphed out the data lastly he
smiled
or at least he defined it as a smile
johnny noticing the change in the water
detective’s face
said i don’t know whether to be scared
or encouraged by that
uh smile you’ve got going on there
are you on to the culprit definitely
encouraged
i may have cracked this case wide open
take a look at this
i added different levels of diluted
bleach to each of the water samples you
saw me pour out
the chlorine concentration added
increased from left to right as i had
them setting on the lab counter
i gave them time for the free chlorine
to react with whatever was in the water
the same time it would have in the
system out there
after this time i measured the remaining
free chlorine
finally i graphed it out here see this
curve
yes there’s a bump in the middle is that
normal
well yes and no but it’s what i
suspected i would see in your case
when chlorine is introduced to a system
it reacts with several things
our desire is for it to react with the
microbes in the water first so the water
is properly disinfected
that way your membranes won’t foul and
fortunately there are other components
in the water that can react with the
chlorine even
faster the typical culprit is ammonia
ammonia can get into surface waters from
farm runoff and so forth
when ammonia reacts with chlorine it
forms chloramine such as monochloramine
a form of combined chlorine now
chloramines are a disinfectant
but some research shows that
monochloramine may be 25 times
less effective than free chlorine at
killing microbes
to get the killing power free chlorine
you must first react with all the
ammonia
after the ammonia is gone and the
chloramine reactions are at completion
the remaining chlorine disinfectant you
add will form free chlorine
this is called break point chlorination
and that’s where the upward sloping line
starts after the hump on the graph
okay i get what you’re saying there
detective h2o
but i still don’t get what it has to do
with us
we test our water for free chlorine
every shift
not monochloramine but free chlorine
it is within the control range every
time
that should be good enough shouldn’t it
what gives
yes you make an excellent point which
brings me to the second part of my story
what you see isn’t always what you get
monochloramine can be a positive
interference to the dpd free chlorine
test to use
that means even though the sample turns
pink and you think you have a true free
chlorine residual in your water
it is actually monochloramine
interfering with your test
you don’t have the killing power you
think you have in your water which would
certainly explain the biological fouling
on your ro membranes and you’re sure
this is happening to us
i tested the water prior to disinfection
for ammonia and found it
look at this level to reach break point
chlorination
you need to feed a weight ratio of 8 to
1 or higher of chlorine to ammonia
based upon your records and data you’re
only feeding enough chlorine to get
halfway up the hump
there’s no true free chlorine at all to
do the disinfection you want
wow what do we do you have a few options
first you can feed more chlorine to the
system to reach break point chlorination
and beyond to your true free chlorine
control range
second you could supplement the chlorine
biocide with another biosign which is
auro membrane compatible
third you could look at replacing the
chlorine bias side with another one that
may be more effective considering your
current water conditions
there are other options we may be able
to consider as well
there are pluses and minuses that come
with each option we can do a thorough
feasibility analysis on each of these
options
let’s prove my theory first by feeding
more chlorine
that sounds like a good plan detective
h2o thanks for your time
detective h2o suspicions were proven to
be true over the coming year
as the arrow membrane cleaning intervals
increased from weekly to quarterly
after initially increasing the chlorine
feed a disinfection feasibility study
was conducted
systems were piloted and changes were
made that increased the cleanings to
every six months
detective h2o had truly saved the day
once again
in the underbelly and penthouses of the
metropolis of waterville
where the boilers percolate and cooling
towers fog there is one man who works
tirelessly to end corrosion
stop scale fight low-life microbes and
conserve water
that man is detective h2o best water
treater this side of the ohio
solving water problems drop by drop
james thanks again for that those are so
much
fun and folks i want to mention again
try to do something fun take a picture
by your wastewater system
do something and hashtag it to iw20
tomorrow is our very last day of
industrial
water week celebration we’re going to be
celebrating careers
with careers friday so tomorrow is your
last day
to show us your water cake if you don’t
have the recipe you can go to the show
notes page
we’ll have that recipe for that cake
for you you can let us know what you
think when you put the main
ingredient in a cake as water and folks
i hope you share that with somebody i
hope you get a picture of you
sharing that with somebody i hope you’ve
enjoyed all the things that
we’ve brought to you this week and i’m
going to close out this episode
just like i’ve closed out all the other
episodes
with a quote this one is by ben franklin
when the well is dry we all know the
worth of water
folks i hope you know the worth of water
and i hope you know the worth
of you being an industrial water
treatment professional
see you tomorrow folks
you