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Quantitative monitoring of an activated sludge reactor using on-line UV-visible and near-infrared spectroscopy

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Abstract

The performance of an activated sludge reactor can be significantly enhanced through use of continuous and real-time process-state monitoring, which avoids the need to sample for off-line analysis and to use chemicals. Despite the complexity associated with wastewater treatment systems, spectroscopic methods coupled with chemometric tools have been shown to be powerful tools for bioprocess monitoring and control. Once implemented and optimized, these methods are fast, nondestructive, user friendly, and most importantly, they can be implemented in situ, permitting rapid inference of the process state at any moment. In this work, UV-visible and NIR spectroscopy were used to monitor an activated sludge reactor using in situ immersion probes connected to the respective analyzers by optical fibers. During the monitoring period, disturbances to the biological system were induced to test the ability of each spectroscopic method to detect the changes in the system. Calibration models based on partial least squares (PLS) regression were developed for three key process parameters, namely chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate concentration (N-NO −3 ), and total suspended solids (TSS). For NIR, the best results were achieved for TSS, with a relative error of 14.1% and a correlation coefficient of 0.91. The UV-visible technique gave similar results for the three parameters: an error of ~25% and correlation coefficients of ~0.82 for COD and TSS and 0.87 for N-NO −3 . The results obtained demonstrate that both techniques are suitable for consideration as alternative methods for monitoring and controlling wastewater treatment processes, presenting clear advantages when compared with the reference methods for wastewater treatment process qualification.

Raw spectra obtained in situ with the NIR analyzer between 900 and 1400 nm

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through project PPCDT/AMB/60141/2004. M.C. Sarraguça acknowledges the financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through Ph.D. grant SFRH/BD/32614/2006.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. REQUIMTE, Serviço de Química-Física, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Aníbal Cunha, 164, 4099-030, Porto, Portugal

    Mafalda C. Sarraguça & João A. Lopes

  2. IBB—Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Paulo, Madalena M. Alves, Ana M. A. Dias & Eugénio C. Ferreira

Authors
  1. Mafalda C. Sarraguça
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  2. Ana Paulo
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  3. Madalena M. Alves
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  4. Ana M. A. Dias
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  5. João A. Lopes
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  6. Eugénio C. Ferreira
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Correspondence to Eugénio C. Ferreira.

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Sarraguça, M.C., Paulo, A., Alves, M.M. et al. Quantitative monitoring of an activated sludge reactor using on-line UV-visible and near-infrared spectroscopy. Anal Bioanal Chem 395, 1159–1166 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-009-3042-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-009-3042-z

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