CHE61203

POLLUTION CONTROL

LECTURE 2:
Water Pollution (Part 1)

Presenter : Nurhazwani Ismail

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Outline
• Source of Water
• Regulations on Wastewater Engineering
• Water Quality Characteristics
• Units of Measurement
• Definitions for solids

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Water
• Basis of Life
• Water is an essential part
of our life-support system
—indeed, it covers 71%
of the Earth’s surface
(seas and Ocean)

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Water Source of the World
 97.200% salt water in the oceans
 02.014% ice caps and glaciers
 00.600% groundwater
 00.009% surface water
 00.005% soil moisture
 00.001% atmospheric moisture

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Water related issue

More than 80 per cent of wastewater resulting from human activities is

discharged into rivers or sea without any pollution removal

3 in 10 people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 6

in 10 people lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities.
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Regulations on Wastewater Engineering
• The Water Pollution Control Act was first implemented in 1948,
which concerned
1. The removal of colloidal, suspended, and floatable material
(Total suspended solids – TSS)
2. The treatment of biodegradable organics (Biochemical
oxygen demand – BOD)
3. The elimination of pathogenic organisms

• The Act was amended to Federal Water Pollution Control Act

Amendments of 1972, also known as Clean Water Act (CWA)
– To achieve the objectives of ‘fishable and swimmable” waters.

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Regulations on Wastewater Engineering
• From the early 1970s to about 1980,
– The earlier objectives continued but at higher levels
– Removal of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus,
began to be addressed

• Since 1980, the water-quality improvement objectives of the

1970s have continued
– The emphasis has shifted to the definition and removal of
constituents that may cause long-term heath effect and
environmental impacts.

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Regulations on Wastewater Engineering
• The early treatment objectives remain valid today

• The required degree of treatment has increased significantly,

and additional treatment objectives and goals have been
added

• Therefore, treatment objectives must go hand in hand with

water-quality objectives or standards established by the
federal, state, and regional regulatory authorities.

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Regulations on Wastewater Engineering

• Environmental Quality (Sewage and Industrial Effluents)

Regulations 1979 (Revoked by PU(A) 432/2009) – 1st January
1981

• Environmental Quality (Sewage) Regulations 2009 – 10th

December 2009

• Environmental Quality (Industrial Effluent) Regulations 2009 –

10th December 2009

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Regulations on Wastewater Engineering

10
Regulations on Wastewater Engineering

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Regulations on Wastewater Engineering

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Wastewater Characteristics
• Characterized in terms of its physical, chemical, and biological
composition.

• Many of the physical properties and chemical and biological

characteristics are interrelated.

For example, temperature, a physical property, affects both the

amount of gases dissolved in the wastewater and the biological
activity in the wastewater.

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Wastewater Characteristics
Physical Characteristics
– Total solids (TS)
– Total suspended solid (TSS)
– Total dissolved solid (TDS) (TS – TSS)
– Turbidity
– Color
– Odor
– Temperature
– Density
– Conductivity
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Wastewater Characteristics
Inorganic Chemical Characteristics
– Free ammonia (NH4+)
– Organic nitrogen (Org N)
– Total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN (Org N + NH4+-N))
– Nitrites (NO2-)
– Nitrates (NO3-)
– Total Nitrogen (TN)
– Inorganic phosphorus (Inorg P)
– Total phosphorus (TP)
– Organic phosphorus (Org P)

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Wastewater Characteristics
Inorganic Chemical Characteristics
– pH
– Alkalinity
– Chloride (Cl-)
– Sulfate (SO4-2)
– Metals (As, Cd, Ca, Cr, Co, Cu, Pb, Mg, Hg, Mo, Ni,
Se, Na, Zn)
– Specific inorganic element and compounds
– Various gases (O2, CO2, NH3, H2S, CH4)
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Wastewater Characteristics
Inorganic Chemical Characteristics

• Metals (As, Cd, Ca, Cr, Co, Cu, Pb, Mg, Hg, Mo, Ni, Se,
Na, Zn)
• Hardness is the concentration of multivalent metallic
cations in water
• Hardness cations will react with anions under
supersaturated conditions.
• Classified as Carbonate and noncarbonated hardness
• Multivalent metallic ions that are abundant in water
are calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese,
strontium and aluminium
• As other multivalent metallic ions are present in
small quantities, for all practical purpose hardness is
defined as the sum of calcium and magnesium ions.

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Wastewater Characteristics
Inorganic Chemical Characteristics

• Calcium and magnesium are necessary for

human body.
• Inadequate intake of calcium will lead to risk of
osteoporosis, kidney stones, coronary artery
disease, colorectal cancer, hypertension,
stroke, insulin resistance and obesity.
• Hardness contributes to:
– the taste of water to varying degree
– increased soap consumption
– scale deposition in heated water applications, the
water distribution system and boilers
• Excessively hardness of water can lead to
corrosion
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Wastewater Characteristics

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Wastewater Characteristics
Organic Chemical Characteristics
– Five-day carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand
(CBOD5)
• A measure of the amount of oxygen required to stabilize a waste
biologically
• A measure of the quantity of oxygen that microbes will consume
while decomposing biodegradable matter under aerobic
conditions.

– Chemical Oxygen demand (COD)

• A measure of the amount of oxygen required to oxidize all organic
matter into carbon dioxide and water

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BOD test procedure

Unseeded dilution water

Seeded dilution water

BOD Calculation
•  
BOD can be calculated via (when the dilution water is not seeded):

BOD can be calculated via (when the dilution water is seeded):

Where
= DO of diluted sample immediately after preparation, mg/L
= DO of diluted sample after 5-day incubation at 20 0C, mg/L
= DO of seed control before incubation, mg/L
= DO of seed control after incubation, mg/L
= Fraction of seeded dilution water volume in sample to volume of seeded dilution water in
seed control
P = Fraction of wastewater sample volume to total combined volume
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BOD Calculation
Example 1:
The following information is available for a seeded 5-day BOD test conducted on a
wastewater sample. 15 mL of waste sample was added directly into a 300 mL BOD
incubation bottle. The initial DO of the diluted sample was 8.8mg/L and the final
DO after 5 days was 1.9 mg/L. The corresponding initial and final DO of the
seeded dilution water was 9.1 and 7.9, respectively. What is the 5-day BOD (BOD 5)
of the wastewater sample?

(Answer: 115.2 mg/L)

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Wastewater Characteristics
Organic Chemical Characteristics
– Dissolved Oxygen (DO)
• Aquatic plants and animals depend on DO to live
• The quantity of DO in surface water depends on:
– Water temperature
– Sediment in the stream
– Decaying organisms,
– Photosynthesizing plants
– Oxygen transfer from surface of water

• Most warm water fish need DO in excess of 2 mg/l but some

species need more than 5 mg/l.

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Wastewater Characteristics
Organic Chemical Characteristics
– Dissolved Oxygen (DO)

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Wastewater Characteristics
Biological Characteristics
– Coliform organisms
• To assess presence of pathogenic bacteria and
effectiveness of disinfection process

– Specific microorganisms (Bacteria, protozoa,

helminths, viruses)
• To assess presence of specific organisms in connection
with plant operation and for reuse

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Wastewater Characteristics
Constituent Reason for importance
Suspended solids Lead to the development of sludge deposits and anaerobic
conditions when untreated wastewater is discharged in the
aquatic environment.

Biodegradable organics Composed principally of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats,

biodegradable organics are measured most commonly in
terms of BOD and COD. If discharged untreated to the
environment, their biological stabilization can lead to the
depletion of natural oxygen resources and to the
development of septic conditions.

Pathogens Communicable diseases can be transmitted by the

pathogenic organisms that maybe present in wastewater

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Wastewater Characteristics
Constituent Reason for importance
Nutrients Both nitrogen and phosphorus, along with carbon, are essential
nutrient for growth. When discharged to the aquatic
environment, these nutrients can lead to the growth of
undesirable aquatic life. When discharged in excessive amounts
on land, they can also lead to the pollution of groundwater.

Priority pollutants Organic and inorganic compounds selected on the basis of their
known or suspected carcinogenicity mutagenicity,
teratogenicity, or high acute toxicity. Many of these compounds
are found in wastewater.

Refractory organics These organics tend to resist conventional methods of

wastewater treatment. Typical examples include surfactants,
phenols, and agricultural pesticides.

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Wastewater Characteristics
Constituent Reason for importance
Heavy metals Heavy metals are usually added to wastewater from
commercial and industrial activities and may have to be
removed if the wastewater is to be reused.

Dissolved inorganics Inorganic constituents such as calcium, sodium, and sulfate are
added to the original domestic water supply as a results of
water use and may have to be removed if the wastewater is to
be reused.

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Units of Measurement for Physical
and Chemical Parameters
• Measurement of chemical parameters are usually expressed in the
physical unit of milligrams per liter (mg/L) or grams per cubic meter
(g/m3).

• The concentration of trace constituents is usually expressed as

micrograms per liter (µg/L) or nanograms per liter (ng/L).

• The concentration can also be expressed as parts per million (ppm),

which is a mass-to-mass ratio.

• For dilute system, such as those encountered in natural waters and

wastewater, in which one liter of sample weighs approximately one
kilogram, the units of mg/L or g/m3 are interchangeable with ppm.

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Units of Measurement for Physical and
Chemical Parameters
• The terms “part per billion” (ppb) and “parts per trillion” (ppt)
are used interchangeably with µg/L and ng/L.

• Dissolved gases, considered to be chemical contituents, are

expressed in ppm by volume (ppmv), µg/m3, or mg/L.

• Gases that evolve as byproducts of wastewater treatment,

such as carbon dioxide and methane are measured in term of
L or m3 (ft3).

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Units of
Measurement
for Physical
and Chemical
Parameters

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Units of Measurement for Physical and
Chemical Parameters
Example 2:
An Industrial wastewater treatment plant with flowrate of 50
m3/day and COD of 800ppm, BOD of 450ppm and TSS of 1500ppm.
Determine the concentration of COD, BOD and TSS in kg/day.
(Answer: COD = 40 kg/day; BOD = 22.5 kg/day ; TSS = 75 kg/day)

In order to meet discharged limit of Standard A, what is the

removal efficient of COD, BOD, and TSS required? Assuming the
discharged flowrate is 50 m3/day.

(Answer: Removal efficiency for COD = 90%; BOD = 95.56% ; TSS = 96.66%)

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Units of Measurement for Physical and
Chemical Parameters
•   Fraction
Mole
• The ratio of the number of moles of a given solute to the total number
of moles of all components in solution is defined as the mole fraction.
• In equations form,

Where = mole fraction of solute B

= number of moles of solute A
= number of moles of solute B
= number of moles of solute C
= number of moles of solute N

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Units of Measurement for Physical and
Chemical Parameters
Mole Fraction
Example 3:
Determine the mole fraction of oxygen in water if the
concentration of dissolved oxygen is 10.0 mg/L.

(Answer: 5.62 x 10-6)

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Definitions for solids found in Wastewater
Test Description
Total solids (TS) The residue remaining after a wastewater sample has been
(TVS + TFS) evaporated and dried at a specified temperature (103 –
105˚C)
Total volatile solids (TVS) Those solids that can be volatilized and burned off when the
(VSS + VDS) TS are ignited (500 ± 50˚C)
Total fixed solids (TFS) The residue that remains after TS are ignited (500 ± 50˚C)
(FSS + FDS)

Total suspended solid (TSS) Portion of the TS retained on a filter with a specified pore
size, measured after being dried at a specified temperature
(105˚C). The filter used most commonly for the
determination of TSS is the Whatman glass fiber filter, which
has a nominal pore size of about 1.58µm.
Volatile suspended solids (VSS) Those solids that can be volatilized and burned off when the
TSS are ignited (500 ± 50˚C)

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Definitions for solids found in
Wastewater
Test Description
Fixed suspended solids (FSS) The residue that remains after TSS are ignited (500 ± 50˚C)

Total dissolved solid (TDS) Those solids that pass through the filter, and are then
(TS – TSS) evaporated and dried at specified temperature. It should be
noted that what is measured as TDS is comprised of colloidal
and dissolved solids. Colloids are typically in the size range
from 0.001 to 1µm.
Total volatile dissolved solids Those solids that can be volatilized and burned off when the
(VDS) TDS are ignited (500 ± 50˚C)
Fixed dissolved solids (FDS) The residue that remains after TDS are ignited (500 ± 50˚C)

Settleable solids Suspended solids, expressed as milliliters per liter, that will be
settle out of suspension within a specified period of time.

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Definitions for solids found in Wastewater
Example 4:
The following test results were obtained for a wastewater sample taken at the headworks to a
wastewater-treatment plant. All the tests were performed using a sample of size of 50mL. Determine
the concentration of total solids, total volatile solids, suspended solids, volatile suspended solids,
total dissolved solids, and total volatile dissolved solids. The samples used in the solids analyses were
all either evaporated, dried or ignited to constant weight.

• Tare mass of evaporating dish = 53.5433 g

• Mass of evaporating dish plus residue after evaporation at 105˚C = 53.5794g
• Mass of evaporating dish plus residue after ignition at 550˚C = 53.5625g
• Tare mass of Whatman CF/C filter after drying at 105˚C = 1.5433g
• Mass of Whatman CF/C filter and residue after drying at 105˚C = 1.5554g
• Mass of Whatman CF/C filter and residue after ignition at 550˚C = 1.5476g

(Answer: TS = 722 mg/L; TVS = 338 mg/L ; TSS = 242 mg/L; VSS = 156 mg/L; TDS = 480 mg/L; VDS = 182 mg/L)

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Thank you for your attention