Capitalizing RFID Technology as Cost-Effective Real-Time Process Monitoring Tool in Wastewater Treatment: Two Case Studies

9 pages•Published: September 20, 2018

Johannus Wilhelmus Wouters, Jai Sankar Seelam and Klas Jan Agema

Abstract

The legislative norms for treated wastewater diffuse in terms of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations are becoming increasingly stringent in the EU region. Compliance with the consent values compelled the water authorities to implement moving bed biofilters (MBFs) for tertiary stage effluent polishing. However, on-site and field surveys reveal that numerous MBF units suffer from non-optimal operational conditions, logistical challenges and irregular monitoring. This makes meeting the N-P criterion quite a challenging and expensive affair. It is therefore important to optimize their day-to-day operations, facilitate access to reliable and real-time status updates, and troubleshoot the failures. In this direction, an "internet-of-things", radio frequency ID (RFID) and cloud based monitoring and control tool, Sand-Cycle, was successfully developed, tested and implemented to monitor MBFs. The current study presents full- scale application of the developed remote control and mote technology at two wastewater treatment works. Sand-Cycle illustrated real-time dashboards indicating performance grading factors viz. in-situ average sand circulation rate, active bed volume and filter homogeneity. This presented clear instructions for detected malfunctions and enabled the operators to optimize the MBF output with limited effort. Further technical and technological advancements of such IoT based setups can actively assist in tackling long-term sustainability and wastewater management issues.

Keyphrases: data analytics, moving bed biofilters, real time monitoring, remote control, rfid, sand cycle

In: Goffredo La Loggia, Gabriele Freni, Valeria Puleo and Mauro De Marchis (editors). HIC 2018. 13th International Conference on Hydroinformatics, vol 3, pages 2333-2341.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/jmgS
	https://doi.org/10.29007/v639

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{HIC2018:Capitalizing_RFID_Technology_as,
  author    = {Johannus Wilhelmus Wouters and Jai Sankar Seelam and Klas Jan Agema},
  title     = {Capitalizing RFID Technology as Cost-Effective Real-Time Process Monitoring Tool in Wastewater Treatment: Two Case Studies},
  booktitle = {HIC 2018. 13th International Conference on Hydroinformatics},
  editor    = {Goffredo La Loggia and Gabriele Freni and Valeria Puleo and Mauro De Marchis},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Engineering},
  volume    = {3},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2516-2330},
  url       = {/publications/paper/jmgS},
  doi       = {10.29007/v639},
  pages     = {2333-2341},
  year      = {2018}}

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