Chapter 3

Sewage Treatment

3.1 INTRODUCTION
The waste disposed by domestic households and industry is conveyed to the
treatment works by means of pipes (sewers). The arrangement of sewers is
known as the sewerage system. Everything that flows in the sewers is sewage.
These terms are often confused in practice.
In a traditionally combined sewer, all sewage, both foul and surface water, is
conveyed in a single pipe. A foul sewer conveys the nasties (i.e., contami-
nants). A surface water sewer conveys the runoff from roofs and paved areas.
Concerning separate systems, two pipes are laid in the trench for the
sewerage system: one for the foul sewer, and the second for the surface water.
This book is concerned with the treatment of both wastewater and urban runoff.
The flow in a sewer can be estimated with Eq. (3.1.1). The mean domestic
water consumption is typically 140 l/h/day for rural and 230 l/h/day for urban
areas.
DWF PQ I E (3.1.1)
where:
DWF averaged total flow in 24 h (dry-weather flow) (QT/24);
P population;
Q mean domestic water consumption;
I rate of infiltration;
E industrial effluent discharge to the pipe; and
QT total volume of flow in a 24-h period.

3.2 DESIGN FLOW RATES

Normally, at sewage treatment works, flows up to three DWF are given full
treatment; >6 DWF (since they are diluted by the surface water) require only
preliminary treatment. Flows between three and six DWF are stored tempo-
rarily and given full treatment.
However, care needs to be taken in the design of overflow structures,
particularly for flows >6 DWF. These must be designed such that the outflow

Wetlands for Water Pollution Control. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-63607-2.00003-4

Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 13
14 Wetlands for Water Pollution Control

from them has a minimum impact on the receiving water; in particular, care
must be taken with the solid material, which occurs in the so-called first foul
flush or simply the first flush (i.e., immediately after the rainfall storm
commences, accumulated material in the sewer is likely to be flushed out of
the system).

3.3 TREATMENT PRINCIPLES

Typically, raw sewage contains 99.9% water and 0.1% solids. The sewage
treatment process is fundamentally about separating solids from the water. The
treatment of solids and sludge forms an important and costly area of sewage
treatment. The impurities in the sewage can be categorized as follows:
l Floating or suspended solids (e.g., paper, rags, grit, and fecal solids);
l Colloidal solids (e.g., organics and microorganisms);
l Dissolved solids (e.g., organics and inorganic salts); and
l Dissolved gases (e.g., hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide).
These impurities are removed from the sewage using operations or pro-
cesses that are physical, chemical, or biological in nature. Physical operations
depend on the physical properties of the impurity for efficient removal (e.g.,
screening, filtration, and sedimentation). Chemical operations depend on the
chemical properties of the impurity and use the chemical properties of addi-
tives for efficient removal (e.g., coagulation, precipitation, and ion exchange).
Biological processes comprise biochemical and/or biological reactions to
remove soluble or colloidal organic impurities (e.g., percolating filters and
activated sludge).

3.4 ENGINEERING CLASSIFICATION OF SEWAGE

TREATMENT STAGES
Wastewater engineers tend to describe the sewage treatment process in terms
of the stages of treatment:
l Preliminary treatment (physical): for example, screening and grit removal;
l Primary treatment (physical and/or chemical): for example, sedimentation
and flotation;
l Secondary treatment (biological and/or chemical): for example, constructed
wetlands, biological filters, and the activated sludge process; and
l Tertiary treatment (physical and/or chemical and/or biological): for example,
polishing wetlands, microstraining, grass plots, and lime precipitation.
At the secondary treatment stage, either percolating filters or activated
sludge treatment is usually present, but certainly not both in parallel. On
occasions, when treating industrial wastes, they may both be used, but always in
series. It should be noted that sludge is produced at the majority of the treatment
 Sewage Treatment Chapter j 3 15

stages. However, in normal practice, the works are organized such that all sludge
is collected centrally.
Wetland systems can be designed for each engineering stage and for sludge
treatment. However, constructed treatment wetlands (for definitions, refer to
Section 20.2) are usually applied for secondary or tertiary treatment stages.
Wetlands integrated in sustainable drainage systems (SuDS; previously called
sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS)) are frequently used for pre-
liminary and primary treatment purposes. Urban runoff requires full treatment,
which is usually not the case in practice, unless for combined sewer systems
and minor storms.