Handbook Biological Wastewater Treatment - Handbook

Since its conception almost a century ago, the activated sludge system has emerged as the dominant waste water treatment technology, with tens of thousands of implementations worldwide. New aspects such as the application of high rate anaerobic reactors for pre-treatment and sludge stabilisation, the use of membranes for sludge separation, and the development of systems with granular sludge with a superior settling rate, have all increased the possibilities to produce a high-quality effluent, resulting in reduced investment and operational costs. However, in many cases traditional design criteria are still being used, which may lead to inflated investment and operational costs and sub-optimal performance. If you want to know why we consider our design approach superior, click here.

In our book, we seek to present state-of-the-art theory concerning the various aspects of the activated sludge system and to develop procedures for optimized cost based design- and operation. The design guidelines for biological nutrient removal are integrated with those of other main treatment units of the activated sludge system, such as the final settler, pre-treatment units, thickeners and digesters. Several detailed design cases are presented, which cover the main biological wastewater treatment configurations currently in use. Click here to see an PDF file containing such a design case (alas odd pages only..).

A significant part of the book has been dedicated to the recent advances in membrane bioreactor treatment (MBR) and to new nitrogen removal systems such as Sharon and Anammox. More than two hundred detailed figures, one hundred tables and seventy worked examples have been used to present the theory to the reader.

So, this is really a book you should have in your professional library. However, don't just take our word for it and check it out for yourself: on this website we have published a substantial part (probably about half of it) of the theory presented in the "Handbook Biological Wastewater Treatment - Design and optimisation of activated sludge systems". No tricks here...we do not try to to lure you into buying our book by presenting all kinds of interesting stuff and then leave out the critical bits ! Click here to check out all the goodies !!

Table of contents - chapters

Introduction
Organic Material and Bacterial Metabolism
Organic Material Removal
Nitrogen Removal
Phosphorus Removal
Sludge Settling
New System Configurations
Sludge Treatment and Disposal
Anaerobic-Aerobic Waste Water Treatment
Integrated Cost-Based Design

More information ?

Click here to browse the detailed Table of Contents in PDF format
Click here to the view the Contents in Brief in PDF format, or here to go directly to the "Design Theory - Contents in Brief" section
Click here to the view the Preface to the Handbook.
And maybe you want to find out more about the authors ?

Main data on the handbook		Click on the pictures to enlarge
Main title: Subtitle: Authors: Publisher: Publication date: ISBN: NUR: Language: Hardcover: Size: Weight: Selling price:	Handbook Biological Waste Water Treatment Design and Optimisation of Activated Sludge Systems Adrianus van Haandel and Jeroen van der Lubbe Quist Publishing - Leidschendam - The Netherlands september 2007 978-90-77983-22-5 973 UK English 570 pages (l x w x h) = 24.5 x 17.5 x 3.5 cm 1500 grams € 69.95 including 6% VAT (€ 3.96)

In what aspects do we consider the integrated design approach outlined in our book superior ?

A large body of theory has been developed for the activated sludge system. And many good books have been written about wastewater treatment, some of them with a wealth of design information. However, when comparing our books with the vast library of books already published, the three most important findings are:

Other books on biological wastewater treatment	Our handbook
The design of the aeration tank (for nitrogen and phosphorus removal) is not integrated with that of the other main treatment units of the activated sludge system: i.e. final- and primary settlers, sludge thickeners and - digesters. If covered at all, the design of the other units is often limited to a stand-alone calculation based on mimimum volume.	In our book it has been attempted to develop an integrated cost-based design method, not only taking into account the construction cost but also the operational cost which typically make up about half of the annualized total costs. Projects can be evaluated based on annualized total treatment costs !
While the calculations are provived to determine the performance of the activated sludge system design for a given sludge age and a given sludge concentration, a clear optimisation routine is missing which determines the optimal value of sludge age, sludge mass fractions and sludge concentration !	In our book a detailed design procedure is given to determine the optimal operational sludge age and the optimal division of the sludge age over the anaerobic, anoxic and aerobic zone. Based on these results, the system consisting of aeration tank and final settler will be optimized through calculation of the optimal operational biomass concentration.
There is a general tendency to use unnecessary detail (that is, unnecessary from a design viewpoint) in the models used to decribe activated sludge behaviour. Click here fore more detailed discussion on the subject	As can be observed from our book, we have simplified the model to the furthest extent and still come up with 570 pages of text ! So it is hardly surprising that for more complex models an analytical solution is often not possible as all

Handbook Biological Wastewater Treatment - Design of Activated Sludge Systems

Contents of the Handbook

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