Ozone in Waste Water Treatment: Achim Ried
Ozone in Waste Water Treatment: Achim Ried
Ozone in Waste Water Treatment: Achim Ried
Jörg Mielcke
ITT WEDECO GmbH Boschstr. 6 32051 Herford Germany
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Implementation of large scale plants
3. Combined biological treatment and ozonation
4. Industrial waste water treatment
4.1. Decolorization
4.2. Disinfection of waste water
5. References for full scale applications
5.1. Tubli plant/Bahrain – municipal waste water
5.2. Ranica/Italy – municipal waste water
5.3. Kalundborg/Denmark – municipal waste water
5.4. Lang Papier/Germany – paper industry
5.5. Fat melting industry – reduction of odorous compounds
5.6. Chemical Industry – reduction of hardly biodegradable compounds
6. New trends for the usage of ozone in waste water treatment
6.1. Sludge treatment
6.2. Advanced oxidation
6.3. Reduction of emerging contaminants
7. Cost calculations
8. Conclusions
Acknowledgement
Bibliography
Summary
The combination of biological treatment with ozonation is the most important approach
to apply ozone in the field of waste water processing. Beside the synergistic effects of
such process combination, which lead to oxidation of recalcitrant and inhibitory
compounds or intermediates by enhancement of their biodegradability, the key for
raising applicability is the improvement of the ozonation efficiency. An overview about
the history and progress of full scale applications is given. Beside this option other
applications are described and an overview of full-scale installations is given. Landfill
leachate and industrial waste water are mostly processed, while treatment of municipal
waste water is of increasing interest due to several benefits such as disinfection,
decolorization and removal of persistent dissolved organic carbon (DOC), EDCs or
pharmaceuticals for water re-use and groundwater recharge.
1. Introduction
Among processes, which purify waste water by means of chemical oxidation, ozone
treatment has established itself steadily increasing as a powerful, effective and
economic oxidation step.
The reasons for this predominance are the manifold application options and the
compliance with high level environmental requirements and the reliable technical
equipment.
The reuse or discharge of waste water can be limited by color, odor and by the amount
of COD, AOX and/or germs. All these parameters can be significantly reduced by using
ozone. According to the limiting conditions, the necessary average ozone doses are as
follows:
Figure 1 gives an overview on the relation between ozone dosage and different
treatment effects. For the implementation of an ozonization into existing treatment
processes in every single case the premises have to be considered individually.
For integration an ozone system onsite a municipal waste water treatment plant the
following key points have to be considered:
necessary ozone dose range (depends on the water matrix and the contaminants)
calculation of the ozone demand (ozone dose * flow rate)
components of an ozone system (ozone generator, gas supply, reaction system, off-
gas handling)
process control, online measurement.
The feed gas for the ozone generator (either purified air or oxygen) can be supplied by a
liquid oxygen tank, an air preparation unit or a PSA unit to produce oxygen onsite. The
final decision for the best gas supply is depending on the availability of liquid oxygen,
the cost of liquid oxygen, the energy cost and the amount of ozone to be produced.
Beside the generation of the ozone an appropriate design of the gas transfer and reaction
system is important. Different gas transfer and reactor designs are known. In drinking
water applications it is very common to use diffusers for the gas transfer and specific
designed concrete basins as reaction chambers. This method is also used for the
treatment of municipal waste water.
Beside the diffusers different type of injectors are used to mix the ozone containing gas
with the water flow. Depending on water flow, required ozone dosage and the reaction
kinetics various configurations are applied, e.g. side stream injection, main stream
injection, plug flow pipe reactors and pressurized reaction tanks [Roustan 2000]. For the
ozonation of secondary effluents the usage of diffusers and concrete basins could be
favorable due to utilization of existing basins.
Possible online measurements for controlling the process could monitor the produced
ozone mass (ozone gas concentration * feed gas flow), ozone concentration in the off-
gas, dissolved ozone concentration after the reaction tank. These parameters can be
measured and controlled readily. Without any difficulties the ozone plant can be
operated at variable ozone dosages depending on the actual water flow rate.
[Ried, Mielcke 1999; Ried, Mielcke et. al. 2000; Ried, Mielcke, Wieland et. al. 2006]
There are manifold ideas how to use oxidants, respectively ozone in the field of waste
water processing. Nevertheless, under the aspect of technical and economic feasibility
the most important approach is to combine the application of ozone with biological
treatment steps.
On that way even high polluted waste waters, like landfill leachates or heavily loaded
effluents from industrial production can be purified. The breakthrough of ozone
applications in waste water treatment was during the beginning of the nineties. Approx.
10 combined ozone-biology applications including larger ozone systems up to 160
(4x40) kgO3/h plants have been completed in 1992, e.g. in the textile industry for
decolorization/tenside destruction and at landfill leachate treatment plants for removal
of recalcitrant compounds.
At that time the post ozonation of biological pre-treated wastewater (BIO-OZONE) was
used. It is interesting to note, that many of those ozone applications have started as
ozone/UV based AOP processes, but by and by the UV systems were switched off due
to the suitable treatment efficiency of BIO-OZONE alone.
Due to the relative high costs for production of ozone and the much lower costs for
biological treatment the first application of the combination “biological pre-treatment –
ozonation – biological post-treatment (BIO-OZONE-BIO)” had been installed at the
end of 1992, shortly after first applications of post-ozonation [Siemers 1995]. In this
landfill leachate BIO-OZONE-BIO application, biological post-treatment was realized
by rotating disks, overgrown with biofilm.
The next step of development for removal of recalcitrant compounds with first
installation in 1995 was the BIOQUINT process, in which the ozonation is placed in a
cycle loop around the second biological treatment step. This integrated ozonation
process is similar to an OZONOBIO multi-step process and comes along the philosophy
“partial oxidation as low as possible and biological oxidation as high as possible”,
which enables lower ozone consumption and therefore a more cost-effective process. In
order to better illustrate the relationships, Figure 5 presents a sample calculation, in
which the corresponding COD degradation behavior is shown as well as the ozone mass
required for the following possible combinations:
(1) biological treatment + ozonation
(2) biological treatment + ozonation + biological treatment
(3) biological treatment + ozonation + biological treatment + ozonation + biological
treatment
To simplify the calculation, the same initial and target concentrations are assumed for a
flow rate of 1 m3/h. Thus, it can be clearly illustrated that the ozone demand decreases
from 2.375 kg ozone/h (A) to 1 kg ozone/h (C) by combining the two processing stages
biological treatment and ozonation.
raw water 1 m3/h COD [mg/l] (A) COD [mg/l] (B) COD [mg/l] (C)
supply 2,200 2,200 2,200
discharge biology I 1,100 1,100 1,100
discharge ozonation I 150 300 900
discharge biology II 150 500
discharge ozonation II 300
biology III 150
However for higher volumetric flow-rates and lower organic loading rates, e.g. in the
chemical industry, the post-ozonation process BIO-OZONE seems to be more suitable
due to easier operation (of different waste water characteristics based on production
plan) related to the potential of less ozone consumption.
Many industrial waste water treatment plants utilize activated sludge biology as a final
step of their treatment process. The biological step is able to reduce the biodegradable
part of COD. The biological treatment efficiency can be disturbed by toxic compounds
e.g. phenols in the raw water. In such cases it is recommended to use ozone in a pre-
treatment step to destroy toxic compounds. For this application a typical ozone dosage
is 50-100 g ozone /m³.
In the effluent of the biological step (secondary effluent) usually the remaining, not
biodegradable COD can be still too high in order to meet specific limits for direct
discharge or reuse purposes. At this stage it is promising to use ozone in combination
with a subsequent biofiltration stage. Figure 6 gives an idea of the possible integration
of ozone treatment into an existing industrial biological treatment plant.
In this theoretical example (based on practical data) the raw water COD is 2000 g/m³.
By using an ozone dosage between 50 and 100 g/m³ toxic compounds can be reduced.
E.g. the oxidation of phenol with ozone is very fast. Due to that a reduction of phenol is
possible even with a high COD level in the raw water.
In the effluent of the biological step the hard, not biodegradable COD might be 800
g/m³ (60% COD-reduction). For further practicable and economic treatment COD can
be reduced to 400 g/m³ with an ozone dosage between 400 and 600 g/m³ (additional
50% COD-reduction).
By using a subsequent biofilter step after ozonation it is possible to reduce the COD for
another 30 -40% down to 240 -280 g/m³.
The additional COD reduction in total due to ozonation and biofiltration is appr. 65 -70
%. Using UV technique subsequent to the biofiltration a final disinfection can be
achieved.
4.1. Decolorization
In the huge field of industrial sewage treatment the removal of color is a single problem
that can be solved quite easily by using just small amounts of ozone.
The necessary ozone dosage for color elimination dependents not only on the type of
dye stuff, its concentration and the effluent concentrations, but also on the background
load of COD.
For highly polluted effluents a pre-treatment to reduce the COD to a level as low as
possible is therefore recommended prior to ozone oxidation, particularly to achieve low
ozone consumption levels.
If the level of organic pollution of the waste water is low (COD = 150 -200 mg/l), high
degrees of degradation of 80-90%, with reference to the colors yellow (436 nm), red
(525 nm) and blue (620 nm), can be achieved with low ozone consumption levels
(approximately 50 mg/l) and short reaction periods (about 10 minutes).
Colored effluents can be even reused as process water after ozone oxidation. The ozone
treatment step provides additional benefits besides color reduction such as:
disinfection
reduction of unpleasant odors.
In March 2000 two large scale ozone systems with an ozone capacity of 13 and 7 kg/h
were set in operation in order to reduce color and COD in a dye manufacturer„s effluent.
These installations followed a successful 2 month pilot plant operation performed on
site in 1999.
The effluent parameters (inlet ozone plant) are: Q 25 m³/h, color = 2500 -5000 ADMI,
COD = 250 -800 mg/l. Goal of the treatment is to reduce the color down
to ADMI 400 .
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