BIOLOGY

PROJECT
NAME: RANI VASHI
th
CLASS: 12 SCIENCE

ROLL NO: 18

TOPIC: SEWAGE
TREATMENT PLANT

SUBMITTED TO: MRS

VINEETA KADWANE
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am extremely thankful to our school ”Lancers army school “to

Principal, Mrs Preeti Nair and My Biology teacher Mrs Vineeta
Kadwane for giving me this opportunity to accomplish this important
project on the topic: "SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT." l am highly
obliged and gratified for their continuous support and guidance during
the completion of this project. I extend my hearty thanks to my parents
and friends for their support and encouragement while this project
was being made, and who helped me to complete this wonderful and
challenging task in the limited time period. I have learnt a lot while
researching on the given topic for this project. I am thankful to all
because of whose support guidance and encouragement, this project
was possible to complete.
 INDEX

➢ INTRODUCTION
➢ WHAT IS SEWAGE?
➢ ORIGINS OF SEWAGE
➢ GENERAL PROCESSES
➢ PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
➢ MICROBIAL PROCESSES
➢ KEY MICROORGANISMS
➢ SEWAGE TREATMENT
➢ PRIMARY TREATMENT
➢ SECONDARY TREATMENT
➢ SLUDGE TREATMENT AND DISPOSAL
➢ CONCLUSION
➢ BIBLIOGRAPHY
 INTRODUCTION

Sewage treatment is a process in which the pollutants are removed.

The ultimate goal of sewage treatment is to produce an effluent that
will not impact the environment. In the absence of sewage treatment,
the results can be devastating as sewage can disrupt the
environment.
 WHAT IS SEWAGE?

Waste material (such as human urine and faeces) that is carried away
from homes and other Buildings in a system of pipes. Waste matter
from domestic or industrial establishments that is carried away in
sewers or drains for dumping or conversion into a form that is not
toxic.
 ORIGINS OF SEWAGE

Sewage is generated by residential, institutional, commercial and

industrial establishments. It includes household waste liquid from
toilets, baths, showers, kitchens, and sinks draining into sewers. In
many areas, sewage also includes liquid waste from industry and
commerce. The separation and draining of household waste into
greywater and black water is becoming more common in the
developed world, with treated greywater being permitted to be used
for watering plants or recycled for flushing toilets. Sewage may
include storm water runoff or urban runoff. Sewerage systems
capable of handling storm water are known as combined sewer
systems. Industrial waste water include Toxic chemical, Organic
waste , Heavy Metals .
 GENERAL PROCESSES

The general processes of sewage treatment are primary, secondary

and tertiary treatment.
✓ Primary treatment involves physical separation of sewage
into solids and liquid by using a settling basin.
✓ The liquid sewage is then transferred to Secondary treatment
which focuses on removing the dissolved biological compound
by the use of micro-organisms. The microorganisms usually use
aerobic metabolism to degrade the biological matter in the
liquid sludge.
✓ Then Tertiary treatment is required to disinfect the sewage so
that it can be released into the environment.
The solid sewage separated from primary treatment is transferred
to a tank for sludge digestion which involves anaerobic degradation
using micro organisms.
 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

The environment of the sewage treatment plant has to be controlled

precisely because bacteria are sensitive to the oxygen level, pH level,
temperature, and level of nutrient. In order for efficient degradation
of biological matter to occur, these factors are controlled manually.

Sewage composition:
Sewage is composed of organic matter such as carbohydrates, fats,
oil, grease and proteins mainly from domestic waste. It also contains
dissolved inorganic matter such as nitrogen species and
phosphorous species mainly from agricultural waste . Microbes is
essential to remove the nutrients before they are released to the
environment because it interferes natural habitats by altering the
chemical composition such as pH or oxygen level both directly and
indirectly.

Oxygen level:
Oxygen level is an important factor to secondary and tertiary
treatment processes. Secondary treatment, oxygen is required as a
terminal electron acceptor in organic matter degradation. For
example, nitrification by Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter species
requires dissolved oxygen to occur . Oxygen in secondary treatment
provided manually by pumping oxygen into the sewage continuously
which occurs in a aeration tank . In tertiary treatment, the removal
of excess organic matter is enhanced by settling the sewage in a
lagoon. This process is also aerobic, but it depends on the diffusion of
oxygen because most organic matter has been degraded by
secondary treatment.

pH:
Acidity plays a crucial role in the breakdown of organic matter
because pH affects the solubility of compounds which indirectly affect
the accessibility by bacteria. Also, bacteria responsible for organic
matter degradation are sensitive to the pH of the environment.
Extremely high or low pH levels are able to kill bacteria, deposition of
organic matter occurs due to lack of degradation. Hence, the pH of
sewage treatment is controlled to be around 7. A nitrifier in
secondary treatment, Nitrosomnas requires a pH between 6-9 in
order to be viable .

Temperature:
The effect of temperature is influential for secondary treatment, but
it is not important in primary treatment. Bacterial growth is sensitive
to temperature because high temperature can increase the fluidity of
the phospholipid bilayer which leads to cell lysis. However, bacteria
are known to have higher enzymatic activity at higher temperature
because of increased thermal energy.
Nutrients for microbes:
There are a lot of nutrients available in the sewage because of human
waste and agricultural runoff. Bacteria can harvest the electron from
organic matter and transfer it to a terminal electron acceptor which
results in the breakdown of organic matter and energy conservation.
 MICROBIAL PROCESS

Aerobic
After primary treatment, liquid and solid phases are physically
separated. The liquid phase is treated with aeration to allow aerobic
degradation of the nutrients. The two important microbial processes
at this stage are nitrification and phosphorous removal. Nitrification
occurs in two discrete steps. First of all, ammonium is oxidized to
nitrite by Nitrosomonas.spp, and nitrite is further oxidized to nitrate
by Nitrobacter.spp.

Anaerobic
In the liquid component of sewage, denitrifying bacteria reduce
nitrate into dinitrogen gas which liberates nitrate from the sewage.
The solid component of the sewage separated in primary treatment
is fermented by bacteria anaerobically.
 KEY MICROORGANISM

Microorganisms in aerobic process

Members of the Nitrosomonas genus is a gram negative bacterium
responsible for the first stage of nitrification in sewage. They oxidize
ammonium into nitrite. This bacterium prefers a pH around 6-9 and
nitrify optimally at 20-30°C. Members of the Nitrobacter genus is a
gram negative bacterium responsible for the second stage of
nitrification in the sewage. It oxidizes nitrite to nitrate using oxygen
as a terminal electron acceptor. The bacteria has an optimum pH of
6~8, and an optimum temperature of 0~40°C.

Microorganism in anaerobic process

Members of Pseudomonas genus is gram negative denitrifying
bacteria that use the chemical energy in organic matter to reduce
nitrate into dinitrogen gas. Also, members of the Bacteroidetes
phylum are the gram negative bacteria responsible for the anaerobic
fermentation of the solid sludge.
 SEWAGE TREATMENT

Sewage treatment is the process of removing contaminants from

wastewater, primarily from household sewage. It includes physical,
chemical, and biological processes to remove these contaminants
and produce environmentally safe treated waste water (or treated
effluent). A by-product of sewage treatment is usually a semi-solid
waste or slurry, called sewage sludge, that has to undergo further
treatment before being suitable for disposal or land application.
Sewage treatment may also be referred to as wastewater treatment.

.
 PROCESS STEPS

Treating waste water has the aim to produce an effluent that will do
as little harm as possible when discharged to the surrounding
environment, thereby preventing pollution compared to releasing
untreated waste water into the environment. In highly regulated
developed countries, industrial effluent usually receives at least
pretreatment if not full treatment at the factories themselves to
reduce the pollutant load, before discharge to the sewer. This process
is called industrial wastewater treatment.
Sewage treatment generally involves three stages, called
✓ primary treatment.
✓ secondary treatment.
✓ tertiary treatment.

PRETREATMENT
Pretreatment removes all materials that can be easily collected from
the raw sewage before they damage or clog the pumps and sewage
lines of primary treatment clarifiers. Objects commonly removed
during pretreatment Include trash, tree limbs, leaves, branches, and
other large objects. The influent in sewage water passes through a
bar screen to remove all large objects like cans, rags, sticks, plastic
Packets etc. carried in the sewage stream. The solids are collected
and later disposed in a landfill, or incinerated.
 PRIMARY TREATMENT

It consists of temporarily holding the sewage in a quiescent basin

where heavy solids can settle to the Bottom while oil, grease and
lighter solids float to the surface.
The settled and floating materials are removed and the remaining
liquid may be discharge or subjected to secondary treatment. Some
sewage treatment plant that are connected to combined sewer
system have a bypass arrangement after the primary treatment unit.
This means that during very heavy rainfall events, the secondary and
tertiary treatment systems can be bypassed to protect them from
hydraulic overloading, and the mixture of sewage and storm water
only receives primary treatment.
PRIMARY TREATMENT
 AEROTION TANK

Wastewater aeration is the process of adding air into wastewater to

allow aerobic bio-degradation of the pollutant components. It is an
integral part of most biological wastewater treatment systems. Unlike
chemical treatment which uses chemicals to react and stabilize
contaminants in the wastewater stream, biological treatment uses
microorganisms that occur naturally in wastewater to degrade
wastewater contaminants.
 SECONDARY TREATMENT

It removes dissolved and suspended biological matter. Secondary

treatment is typically performed by indigenous, water-borne
microorganisms in a managed habitat. Secondary treatment may
require a Separation process to remove the micro-organisms from
the treated water prior to discharge or tertiary Treatment. It include
Fixed-film or attached growth, Suspended-growth, Secondary
sedimentation.

SECONDARY TREATMENT
STEPS OF PROCESSES
SLUDGE TREATMENT AND DISPOSAL

The sludge accumulated in a wastewater treatment process must be

treated and disposed of in a safe and effective manner. The purpose
of digestion is to reduce the amount of organic matter and the
number of disease causing microorganisms present in the solids. The
most common treatment options include anaerobic digestion, aerobic
digestion, and composting. Incineration is also used, albeit to a much
lesser degree. Sludge treatment depends on the amount of solids
generated and other site-specific conditions. Composting is most
often applied to small-scale plants with aerobic digestion for mid-
sized operations, and anaerobic digestion for the larger-scale
operations.
 CONCLUSION

With suitable technology, it is possible to reuse sewage effluent for

agriculture and drinking purpose, although this is usually done in
places with limited water supplies. With the emerging development of
technology in this 20th century, the process of wastewater treatment
can be still developed to recycle water that can be used for drinking
and other purposes. So I conclude that wastewater treatment must
be essential for a developing country.
 \

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Class 12 BIOLOGY NCERT textbook