Systems tools and systems analysis approaches for evaluating biotreatment intensification and optimisation: PAPER & PRESENTATION
Palmer, S., Stantec, UK
(free)
Abstract
Wastewater treatment provides public health protection and aquatic environment environmental protection for humanity downstream of our global economy. The dependence of life on water and the ubiquity of water in the economy have translated into the need for water and wastewater treatment to economically operate on the lowest cost per mass basis of any industry. This paper explains how that has translated into biotreatment being universally adopted for wastewater treatment and how challenges in terms of increasing human population and emerging pollutants create the need for the intensification of biotreatment.
This paper shows how we can analyse a biotreatment system on a physical systems basis. This approach explains how a biotreatment system designer is the designer of an environment meant to select for a particular range of an aggregate (microbial community) genomic capability that translates into the system operational capability. The system capacity is represented by the operationally functional biomass per volume of the bioreactor. The paper provides guidance on how risk factors differ between different types of biomass under biotreatment intensification.
Keywords
second law of thermodynamics, far from equilibrium thermodynamic systems, physical information, resource efficiency, biotreatment systems analysis.
