REAL-TIME PROCESS MONITORING OF BIOMASS RESPIRATION
IN AN ACTIVATED SLUDGE SYSTEM
Scott M. Summers, Environmental Engineer
Robert A. Slon, Industrial Engineer
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, New York  14650
The successful operation of any dynamic process is often dependent on providing the
operator with real-time information on the status of the process. This information allows the
operator to effect meaningful changes to produce a quality product. This philosophy holds
true not only for product manufacturing; it also applies directly to the operation of an
industrial wastewater treatment facility, such as Eastman Kodak Company's, Kodak Park
Division, King's Landing Wastewater Purification Plant (KLWPP).
This industrial wastewater plant provides process wastewater treatment for Kodak Park
production facilities located in Rochester, New York. It was designed for centralized treatment of 36 MGD and 140,000 lb/day BOD5 of industrial wastewater resulting from the
manufacture of photographic paper, film, and chemicals at the 1900 acre Kodak Park
complex. The KLWPP consists of primary settling and neutralization followed by two
plastic-packed, super-rate trickling filters which precede three parallel completely mixed
activated-sludge units. A block diagram of the wastewater treatment plant is shown in
Figure 1. The organic fraction in the wastewater is 90% soluble and consists primarily of
short-chain organic solvent, proteinaceous wastes and other miscellaneous organic compounds. The annual average BOD5 load was 105,000 lb/day during 1980. The secondary
plant is operated using a modified "West" method and normally maintained at a 12- to
15-day solids retention time.
The need to provide real-time information to operations personnel became clear during an
intensive program [ 1 ] to identify causes of poor settling sludge which occasionally affected
the stable operation of the activated sludge system. This study pointed out the importance
of careful management of the biomass solids in the secondary plant. Solids management
greatly reduced the risk of a short term F/M overload of the aeration basins causing rapid
microorganism growth resulting in difficult to settle bacterial floe. This hypothesis appeared
to explain a vast majority of the poor settling conditions; however, a possible secondary
cause was the presence of inhibitory materials in the influent to the King's Landing Plant.
Due to the highly varying chemical matrix of the wastewater resulting from the large number
of batch manufacturing processes in Kodak Park, identification of particular compounds
causing these problems was unlikely.
A method to monitor the "health" of the microbial population in the activated sludge
process was needed to better evaluate the impact of any potentially inhibitory materials. A
program was undertaken to study the effectiveness of available instrumentation to fill this
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Figure 1.  Schematic of King's Landing wastewater
treatment system.
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