Handbook Biological Wastewater Treatment - Design of Activated Sludge Systems

The first free excel tool is scheduled to be placed on the website at the end of September 2007. It is our intention to publish another two design sheets before the end of the year.

1. Design of system configuration A1: the conventional activated sludge system for secondary treatment.
2. Design of system configuration A2: the conventional activated sludge system for secondary treatment, including primary settling
3. Design of system configuration C1: the conventional activated sludge system for tertiary treatment: nitrogen removal

It's simple: just sent us an email (info@wastewaterhandbook.com).....we will ask you for a password (something only people who are in possession of the book will have). If you supply the correct answer we'll sent you the other tools as well !

Yes ! We deliberately developed them in Excel to show you how easy it is to make your own models, tailored to the situation at hand. So there will also not be any password protected sheets et cetera.

Well, based on the theory presented in the book and starting from the free design tools you can go a long way. However, obviously it will take a lot of time to develop a flexible and tested application yourself. So it might be convenient to obtain a tool that has already been tested.

Currently it is being developed and tested at the research group of Dr. van Haandel. We anticipate release in the first half of 2008. As soon as we have a more definitive date we will post it at the news page.

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After finishing his Masters Degree in 1995, Jeroen started his career at world-famous Fontes & Haandel Engenharia Ambiental, a small wastewater consultancy firm that Adrianus had founded in Salvador de Bahia - Brazil together with Fontes Lima, former commercial director of CETREL, a large wastewater treatment plant treating the industrial wastewater from the Camaçari petrochemical complex. Fresh from the university, having extensively worked with the latest dynamic IWA models and advanced software packages such as Matlab/Simulink, he was presented with a partly finished manuscript by Adrianus: "So Jeroen, this will be the best book you have ever read about wastewater treatment". Although Jeroen was sceptical to say the least, these words turned out to be profetic.

Due to a number of circumstances which we will not bother to discuss here (one could say it involved several very enjoyable years) he and Adrianus lost sight from each other. Only in 2003, when Jeroen was doing an internet search on the manuscript title, he did found out that it had never been published. As it turned out, Jeroen was in possession of the only remaining hardcopy while Adrianus his computer had been lost in a burglary !! Yes, indeed a clear breach of the first law of computers....Thou shalt make back-ups (or install better locks on your door )!!

Well, after contact had been re-established, we decided that the concepts presented in the manuscript were really to important to be lost for mankind forever :-) , so we decided to join forces and publish the book altogether. We have updated, extended and rewritten the manuscript thoroughly and added many design examples, new chapters on phosphorus removal, membrane bioreactors and nitrogen removal from nitrogen-rich wastewater stream and so on. We feel that the original manuscript, which was excellent to start with, has been significantly improved. This obviously takes a lot of time, especially when you do your own lay-out and most of the publishing process....which explains why it has taken untill 2007 to finish the job. Now we truly hope you will concur with Adrianus profetic words from the first alinea :-)...

• it presents an integrated cost-based design method, not that not only takes into account the construction cost but also the operational cost which typically make up about half of the annualized total treatment costs
• it not only focuses on the aeration tank but includes the design of the main auxiliary units such as primary settler, final settler, sludge digester and -thickener
• it offers a design method that will optimize the system configuration (sludge age, volume, relative size of anoxic zones) for biological nutrient removal

Well, there are a number of reasons for this. To be honest we feel that the way the big publishing houses do business is something of the past. If you're not J.K. Rowling (you know...Harry Potter) then in general you will not get a very good deal....especially if you are writing for a niche market audience such as sanitary engineers. Although the publishing house will pay for (part of) the editing and the actual printing of the book, you will get a low commission and then only when the number of copies sold exceeds a certain threshold. Adrianus is still waiting for his first royalties of the Anaerobic Sewage Treatment book from 1994 and that book was a reasonable best-seller.....

Nowadays it is possible to do a lot of the editorial and layout work yourself and we contacted a small and eager publishing house (Quist Publishing) to guide us in the peculiarities of this process. One thing that you do miss out on when you do not publish at a large publishing house is retail channels such as Amazon.com. For a small, non US based firm or individual Amazon will charge you about 50% of the value of each book sold. Hence the website and our presence at Google Books. Besides, a website also offers you the possibility to do lots of other things, such as selling software, starting a community on wastewater treatment et cetera.

• We truly feel that the integrated design approach for activated sludge systems as outlined in our book is an improvement. We consider it as a part of our "mission" (well, Adrianus is kind of a teacher) to spread the word !!. Therefore we've decided to publish the core of the handbook on this website. 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 !
• Of course the info on the website is also meant as a teaser. We hope you like what you see and decide to order the handbook. A lot of additional information will then be available to you, including several very detailed design examples (refer to the contents in brief). As we did not employ an expensive publishing house, we have managed to keep the production costs down and thus are able to offer you this 560 page hardcover for a very reasonable selling price of only € 66,- excl VAT.

We absolutely assure you that our sponsors did have any influence whatsoever on the contents of our book. Publishing a book takes time and, if you do it yourself, also a considerable amount of money. Luckily the employers of Jeroen decided to allocate a significant amount of time (Tebodin) and money (Biothane) to make publication of this book possible. In return they have received some free copies, an advertorial page and a number of links from our website. That's all.

Good question...with a simple answer: no !! Many of the theoretical concepts of the main biological processes in wastewater treatment have pretty much been discovered already in the 1980s tot mid 1990s. And it is not so much new theoretical principles that we claim to present in our book (if that is what you seek, refer to the scientific articles in periodicals such as Water Science and Water, Science and Technology (both IWA publications). No, it is rather our design approach which is truly unique, and these concept do not "age" very quickly. And on the other hand, the design and engineering information on MBR and the new nitrogen removal configurations (Sharon, Anammox) is as fresh as you can get !!

Well, for instance lots of information about the theoretical- and design principles involved in the main processes and units of the activated sludge system. Please refer for extensive details to the Contents in Brief, the Table of Contents or the entire section on Design Theory.

The difference in production costs between a paperback and a hardcover is not so large as you might think, only a couple of €. A large fraction of the printing costs can be attributed to the 560 pages inside the cover....., while there are other "general overhead costs" such as layout, cover design, proofreading et cetera that are also the same for both paperback and hardcover. Then, as we'd like to think that you are going to use this book a lot, a hardcover will bring you increased resistance against every day wear and tear. And finally, it just looks very good on your bookshelf...:-)

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In fact, we're not. The book can be ordered in bookshops and at various internet shops. However, it goes without saying that our profit margin is much higher if we cut out the middle man. Still, publishing this handbook is more of a love baby than a commercial enterprise, considering the amount of time we have spent so far. In fact, we do not expect our earnings on an hourly basis to be anything comparable to a proper daytime job such as, well, delivery boy or cleaning lady.....:-)

That's easy. We have created a webshop where you can order the book online. We will sent you an order confirmation per e-mail. As soon as we have received your payment (either through bank transfer, sending the money by mail or by PayPal payment), we will shop the book to you (and include an invoice). Please refer to the extended procedure listed on the Webshop or download the PDF file of this procedure directly.