Waste Water Characterization

An understanding of the nature of the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of waste water is essential in the design and operation of collection, treatment, and disposal facilities, and in the engineering management of environmental quality. 

The analyses performed on waste waters may be classified as physical, chemical, and biological. These analyses vary from precise quantitative chemical determinations to the more qualitative biological and physical determinations. 

Physical Characteristics. The most important physical characteristic ofwaste water is its total solids content, which is composed offloating matter, matter in suspension, colloidal matter, and matter in solution. Other physical characteristics include temperature, color, and odor. 

Chemical Characteristics. These consist of organic matter, the measurement of organic content, the inorganic matter, and the gases found in waste water. The measurement of organic content is very important because of its importance in both the design and operation of waste water treatment plants and the management of water quality. 

---

Geomembrane These liners chiefly provide impermeable barriers. They can be characterized as (1) solid waste containment hazardous landfill, landfill capping, and sanitary landfill (2) liquid containment canal, chemical/brine pond, earthen dam, fish farm, river/coastal bank, waste-water, and recreation (3) mining, leach pad and tailing ponds and (4) specialties floating reservoir caps, secondary containment, tunnel, erosion, vapor barrier, and water purification. Plastics used include medium to very low density PE, PVC, and chlorosulfonated PE (CSPE). (The Romans used in their land and road constructions what we call geomembrane.)... 

The identification and structural characterization of biological materials, obtained for example from plants, was traditionally carried out via the classical sequence involving extraction, separation, isolation and characterization, a sequence which requires large amounts of substance and a great deal of time. Industrial problems, for example the search for small amounts of contaminants in industrial products or in waste water, also require intensive analytical studies. 

With the rapid increase in the nnmber of chemical industries, a great deal of waste-water is produced, which causes pollution and degrades the enviromnent. Many of these industrial wastewaters, particularly the ones, containing phenohc compounds, are well known to be characterized by higher salinity, acidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD) value and low biodegradability, which means that the effluent carmot be treated by the corrventional process [2, 3]. An alternative method of treating such... 

Moura A, Tacao M, Henriques I et al (2009) Characterization of bacterial diversity in two aerated lagoons of a waste water treatment plant using PCR-DGGE analysis. Microbiol Res 164(5) 560-569... 

SNV. Biological-chemical Characterization of Industrial Waste Water. Application When Granting Permits and Exercising Supervisory Authority for Activities Harmful to the Environment Swedish Environmental Protection Agency Solna, Sweden, 1990. 

Fig. 10. Zonation of the Larderello geothermal field derived from (a) gas analyses, and (b) stable isotope values of steam produced before and after re-injection. Distribution and characterization of geothermal subunits obtained by gas analyses have been established from a data set collected before 1989, that is, 6 years after the beginning of re-injection of waste waters. White zones represent areas that produce gas mixtures with almost the same composition as that of the original gases emerging at the surface before the exploitation of the field (Scandiffio et al. 1995). Dashed zones produce steam affected by addition of cold water (i.e., re-injected) to the geothermal system. The zonation from the isotopes was derived from an extensive survey performed in 1992. In Fig. 10b, different sources of cold water are discriminated. Abbreviations LRD = Larderello, CN = Castelnuovo, MR = Monterotondo, SS = Sasso Pisano, LGR = Lagoni Rossi, SR = Serrazzano geothermal subunits.

ICP-MS is well suited for the multi-element determination of trace impurities in different types of water samples, such as drinking water, rain, sea, river, groundwater and also waste water samples (and in addition, highest purity water as required for microelectronics) due to its excellent detection limits from the pg m I 1 to Ig m I 1 concentration range. This powerful and sensitive mass spectrometric technique is applied in routine measurement programs for characterization of water quality and determination of pollution in many laboratories worldwide. 

Water samples (drinking water, rain, sea, river or waste water and others) have been characterized by ICP-MS with multi-element capability in respect to metal impurities (such as Ag, Al, As, Ba, Be, Ca, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Hg, K, Na, Sb, Se, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Tl, Th, U, V and Zn) in many laboratories in routine mode with detection limits at the low ng I 1 range using ICP-QMS, and below by means of ICP-SFMS. Drinking water samples are controlled in respect of the European legislation (Council Directive 98/83/EC of 3 November 1998 on the quality of water intended for human consumption). For quality control of analytical data, certified standard reference materials e.g. drinking water standard (40CFR 141.51), river water reference material SLRS-4 or CASS-2 certified reference sea-water material and others are employed. 

Environmental process analysis requires the characterization of chemical process and waste streams in order to evaluate their environmental abuse potential and treatability characteristics. An integral part of this analysis, as well as environmental fate determinations, is the isolation of organic compounds and metabolic products from very complex matrices such as waste water effluents, process streams, biological reactors, and fermentation broths. Generally, the organics involved are fairly polar, water-soluble compounds that must be ex-... 

Full-scale ozonation systems have been used to treat waste waters, such as landfill leachates, as well as waste waters from the textile, pharmaceutical and chemical industries (FTGAWA, 1997 Bohme, 1999). The main pollutants associated with these waters are refractory organics, which can be characterized as (Masten and Davies, 1994) ... 

Frimmel, F. H., Lankes, U., Ltidemann, H.-D., and Muller, M. B. (2005). Structural characterization of humic substances from waste water. In Humic Substances—Molecular Details and Applications in Land and Water Conservation, Ghabbour, E. A., and Davies, G., eds., Taylor and Francis, New York, pp. 3-22. 

The nature of study objectives in environmental research is often multivariate. Several pollutant patterns from different, sometimes unknown, sources may occur. The state of pollution of a sampling point, line, or area in any environmental compartment, whether atmosphere, water, soil, or biota, depends mostly on the nature of the different sources of pollution. Stack emissions are characterized by a multi-element pattern. Waste water effluents contain different contaminants, ranging from heavy metals to cocktails of organic compounds. 

Tirez, K., W. Brusten, S. Van Roy, et al. 2000. Characterization of inorganic selenium species by ion chromatography with ICP-MS detection in microbial-treated industrial waste water. J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 15 1087-1092. 

Kardam, A., Goyal, R, Arora, J.K., Raj, K.R., and Srivastava, S. 2009. Novel biopolymeric material Synthesis and characterization for decontamination of cadmium metal from waste water. National Academic and Science Letters, 32(5 and 6) 179-81. 

Axelsen K., Wikberg P., Andersson L., Nederfeldt K.-G., Lund J., SjostromT., and Andersson O. (1986) Equipment for Deep Ground Water Characterization Calibration and Test Run in Fjallveden. Status Report AR 84-27, Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB), Stockholm, Sweden. 

When comparing the two sub-basins, it appears that the Weiherbachgraben basin is characterized by higher NO3- concentrations and lower COD concentrations whereas the Sauruntz basin shows higher COD and lower N03 concentrations. These results are consistent with the fact that waste waters of nearly all of the villages in the Weiherbachgraben sub-basin are collected into the sewage treatment plant (STP) whereas... 

---