i n n o v a t i o n f o r n a t u r e

about mixing
used to homogenize temperature
INTRODUCTION ABOUT MIXING and load peaks. Flash-mixing which
Fluid Mechanical Considerations

introduction
GENERAL means fast and intense mixing is

T
he purification of water is Basic Considerations
needed in the neutralization cham-

D
one of the most important enitrification and biological

A
review of the mixing ber. Precipitation and flocculation phosphorus elimination are
environmental tasks today.
systems available on the processes also strongly depend on anaerobic processes, i.e.
This includes the physico-chemical
market for wastewater the correct design of the mixing oxygen-transfer via the free surface
treatment of natural water for the
treatment reveals an impressive equipment. During precipitation is undesirable and negatively affects
supply of drinking water and the
number of different products (Höfken, mixers shall mix the precipitant fast the biological processes. A certain
biological treatment of wastewater
1993). In order to somewhat classify and thoroughly with the wastewater degree of turbulence promotes the
before its discharge into nature.
the large variety it is possible to whereas during flocculation the work of bacteria since the floc re-
The status of wastewater treatment
refer to the definitions of the basic mixers shall supply gentle mixing mains limited in size and is provided
varies from country to country.
mixing tasks as they are used in the with low shear to allow for a good to a greater extent with substrate as
Most of the industrialized countries

About the Design have a very good coverage in

wastewater treatment plants with
more than 90 % of the inhabitants
connected; whereas less developed
fields of chemical and process
engineering. A distinction is made
in process engineering between the
following basic mixing tasks:
suspension and build up of flocs. In
the anaerobic or anoxic processes
mixers for "Biological Phosphorus
Elimination" and "Denitrification"
a result of a larger surface area and
the occurrence of periodic stress
conditions. The main requirement is
to distribute the activated sludge floc Figure 3: Minimum bottom velocity as a functionof tank size
have to supply a flow-field which as evenly as possible and to avoid

of Mixing Systems countries continue to suffer from a

lack of sewage collection systems,
water-, and wastewater treatment
plants. The quality of the wastewater
➣ Homogenization
Compensation of differences in
concentration or temperature
➣ Suspension
takes care that no sedimentation
occurs at the bottom and which
totally suspends and homogenizes
the sludge floc. An additional criteria
dead zones and short circuiting in
the reactors.

These preliminary observations raise

The critical point can be defined in
two ways: by selecting a point on
the bottom or on the wall outside
This then leads to an implicit
calculation method for uoo. Equation
(5) is used for further calculation.
treatment can be segmented into the the area of influence of the corner. The Reynolds number is formed here

for Anaerobic and
following types of treatment:
1. Primary Treatment:
Mechanical treatment using
screens and primary sedimentation
Whirling up and suspending is the retention time and reactor type the question of the optimum flow Own investigations (Höfken, 1994) with development length l of the
of solid particles behavior of the tanks which is conditions in the activated sludge have shown that the axial speeds boundary layer. Length l is depend-
➣ Dispersion influenced severely by the choice tank. In order to prevent the activated near the wall directly after the ent on the mixer design and on the
Liquid/liquid > Emulsions, po- and the design of the mixers. This sludge floc from settling on the change of direction are even slightly tank size.
lymerization is one very important application bottom of the tank, it makes sense higher than the maximum measured

Anoxic Basins for to separate solid matter.

2. Secondary Treatment:
Includes the oxidation of biode-
Liquid/gas > Aeration,

➣ Heat transfer
mass transfer

Intensifying of the heat trans-

for mixers which will be the focussed
on in this paper and discussed in
more detail in the following chapters.
Mixing also plays a major role in
to produce the maximum possible
flow rates together with a certain
degree of turbulence near to the
bottom. If we look at the macro-scale
radial bottom velocities.
The influence of the corner flow can
be eliminated by selecting a distance
of a=L/10 from the wall and a
(6)

mission (cooling, heating) the aerobic steps in which BOD is If (3), (4) and (5) are used in (2),

Large Wastewater gradable organics, usually referred
to as BOD1 and COD2 by means
of additional oxygen. The most
commonly applied process is the so-
called activated sludge process.
flow pattern it is sufficient here to distance b=L/30 from the bottom an equation is obtained after con-
circulate the tank volume uniformly for both critical points. There is no
Mixer type Schematic Mixing task(s) Applications version for determining the flow
in order to achieve the most even danger of deposits forming in the velocity at the critical point, which
distribution; too much turbulence in corner vortex as higher velocities
Horizontal Homogenization, biological phosphorus corresponds to the minimum bottom
Propeller mixers Suspension removal, denitrification this case would have a negative and turbulences occur here, which velocity.

Treatment Plants 3. Tertiary Treatment:

Includes the biological reduction of
BOD and COD plus full nutrient
(slow-speed)

removal. In this case nitrates and
Marcus Hoefken, Walter Steidl, and Peter Huber ammonia are also removed by using
anaerobic processes. In these pro-
cesses the wastewater needs to be
ABSTRACT mixed without the addition of oxygen.
d e v e l o p m e n t
Horizontal
Propeller mixers
Homogenization,
Suspension
Storm water tanks,
sludge tanks
effect on efficiency. It is especially
important to avoid surface turbu-
lence, since this would increase
oxygen-transfer capacity via the free
prevent particle deposits provided
the minimum velocity calculated
below is observed. The possibility
exists here, however, to reduce to a (7).
(higher-viscosity surface. minimum the losses that occur as
(high-speed) fluids)
a result of vortex formation by
In order to calculate this explicitly,
Blade mixer Homogenization, Biological phosphorus If we look at the micro-scale flow furnishing the corners with concrete
pattern, higher turbulent fluctuations an equilibrium of forces must now
Suspension, removal, denitrification haunches. Both definitions of the
Dispersion which can whirl up sedimentations be created between the shear stress
reference point can be used to the
(Mainly in carousel are desirable at the bottom of the same equivalent extent. For the initial
forces and the gravity forces acting

basins)
tank. on the particles.
In the EU tertiary treatment for full theoretical calculation of the
In the field of wastewater treatment efficient mixers nutrient removal is obligatory for all minimum bottom velocity given
member states since May 1991 Hyperboloid Homogenization, Biological phosphorus Since the majority of sewage below, however, it is simpler to select (8).
mixers and Suspension, removal, denitrification, treatment plants are built with a point on the bottom at a distance
are needed to suspend solids and to homogenize in large mixing (EEC, 1991). A standard which
mixer/aerators Dispersion, BOD-removal, nitrifi-
rectangular tanks, the flow in this
currently has not been reached in Heat transfer cation, intermittent of L/10 because boundary layer
all member states. Many plants still processes, sludge type of tank will be examined here observations are easier here. Use of (2) in (8) results after
and equalization tanks, and especially in anaerobic and anoxic have to be built and many have to treatment in more detail. The design of mixing conversion in an equation between
be upgraded - a situation which is systems in carousel and circular tanks Two limit cases can be formulated the dimensionless units Reτ and Ar:
tanks for full nutrient removal in the activated sludge process. typical for the status of wastewater is described in Höfken, 1993. The to estimate the forces exerted by the
treatment in many countries in the Surface aerators Suspension, BOD-Removal, design rules are similar to the ones fluid on the particles contained in
Dispersion Nitrification presented below. the boundary layer at the bottom: (9)
world. This is the reason why the
The layout and design of such mixing systems has to activated sludge process including
It has been deduced that the most 1. Only the wall shear stress acts
mixing and aeration have become
take into account process and the reactor design. Self-aspirating sub- Dispersion BOD-Removal, favorable energy conditions are on the particles
a key topic in wastewater treatment.
merged aerators Nitrification, sludge obtained for suspension using tank 2. A tractive force is active with
treatment (10)

T
he activated sludge process
Otherwise the plant cannot perform properly
stands for a large variety of
continuous, space and time-
and according to the specification.
oriented periodic processes. As
mentioned before, the activated
sludge process is used for BOD-
removal and complete nitrogen
bottom mixing systems arranged velocity v as a result of the
centrally in the tank. Clarification is flow.
Self-aspirating Dispersion BOD-Removal, needed on the question of the
helical aerators Nitrification, sludge According to Latzel (1986), limit By calculating the Archimedes'
minimum flow velocity required at
treatment case 2 leads to a condition for the number it is possible to calculate u τ
the bottom of the tank.
limit case of the minimum suspension and use it in (7) as the missing
Digested sludge Homogenization Sludge digesters
of a single particle (ϕp→0). Since variable. Various equations can be
mixers Analytical Approach
this case is not of any technical applied for length l of the boundary

removal. Well-known variants are
The paper at hand discusses the basic demands the preliminary nitrification/denitri-
fication and the post-denitrification
on a mixing system. It presents the basic design rules (Metcalf and Eddy,1991). Well-
known batch process variants are
the Sequencing Batch Activated
for the layout and design of mixing systems for
Sludge Reactor (SBASR), the Cyclic
Activated Sludge System (CASS) and
anaerobic and anoxic basins. Using the example of a large the Intermittent Cycle Extended
Aeration System (ICEAS) which are
wastewater treatment plant it is shown that the mixer covered in detail in the literature:
Irvine, 1971; Wilderer and
Schroeder, 1986 or Metcalf and
design can influence the reactor behaviour positively Eddy, 1991. All these biological
purification processes as well as the
if the design is chosen correctly. Finally some mechanical known standard activated sludge
process include two major oper-
ations: mixing and aeration. Without
aspects of a mixer design are discussed.
mixing and aeration an effective
reduction of BOD and nitrogen is
&
Table 1: Overview of mixing systems
Note: The mixing tasks marked in bold type should preferably be performed using the mixing system assigned to them
in the above table. In more than a few cases this may be inconsistent with normal applications in wastewater treatment.
This breakdown leads to a classifi-
cation of all the different types of
mixing systems available on the
market today that are used for
wastewater treatment and enables
an example of application in
wastewater treatment to be found
without difficulty for each mixing
task shown in table 1.
Mixing is one of the most important
unit processes used in the treatment
of water- and wastewater. Figure 1
shows a typical flow diagram of a
wastewater treatment plant and
removed and nitrification is achieved.
Either aeration is realized using
mixers which disperse the air in
bubbles which then transfer their
oxygen into the water or membrane
aerators are used to produce bubbles.
In the latter case the airflow itself
has to provide sufficient mixing to
avoid sedimentation of sludge floc
and to prevent short-circuiting. The
important role of mixing in aerated
tanks is highly underestimated in
many designs.
Furthermore mixing is needed in the
I
In order to arrive at a practical
method for calculating the
minimum bottom velocities in a
reactor it is necessary to initially
define the critical point for deposits
in the reactor under question. It is
shown that the critical area is
normally close to the edge of the
tank at the point where the horizontal
flow is changing to the vertical
direction. Here the bottom boundary
layer reaches its full length and has
normally increased to such an extent
that a greater number of particles
can penetrate the viscous sublayer
due to the zones of lower flow rates
present close to the bottom (wall). It
is known from experience that the
corner flow itself is not a critical
area with respect to flow patterns
relevance, it is not considered here.
We shall consider case 1, the effect
of the wall shear stress. The behavior
of the turbulent velocity profile near
the wall can be derived from the
Prandtl-mixing length, which can be
stated in general as follows based
on Levich (1962):
where uτ is the so-called wall shear
stress velocity and y+ is the dimen-
sionless wall distance. The following
definitions apply:
(2)
layer depending on the mixing
system and the method used to create
the flow. Figure 3 shows the
minimum bottom velocity for various
particle diameters as a function of
length l=f (tank size, method used
to create the flow).
It can be seen that bottom flow
velocities of 15cm/s are certainly
adequate enough to stir up activated
sludge and keep it suspended. The
recommended design particle size
is dp=100 µm (middle curve), the
real value for samples from a great
number of wastewater treatment
plants was dp = 60 µm as depicted
in the bottom curve. Bottom velocities
of 10cm/s therefore should also be
sufficient, however without any safety

impossible. Since approximately produced by radial mixing systems

KEYWORDS 70% of the total energy consumption
is used for these two processes
(Höfken et al., 1995) a proper
Mixing; Plug-flow reactor; Complete-mix reactor
choice and design of such systems
is indispensable. Hence, only
Activated Sludge Process, Wastewater treatment. innovative and energy-efficient
r e s e a r c h
illustrates in which treatment steps
mixing is, or can be involved.
The process starts in the mixing and
equalization basin where mixers are
treatment of waste sludge. This shows
that in almost all treatment steps
mixing plays an important role and
can decide about the quality of the
overall treatment result.
against variations. This statement
near to the bottom because an eddy
flow with a strong upward compo-
does not contradict the recommend-
ation of the ATV3 to maintain bottom
nent occurs as a result of slowing
velocities of 10 - 30 cm/s, but clearly
down the rotation flow, preventing (3).
shows that a demand for minimum
the formation of deposits at this point.
bottom velocities greater than
The flow patterns shown in Figure 2

30cm/s is unjustifiable. Even

equipment should be used. are obtained from an examination
maximum particle sizes do not
of the change of direction of the flow In the case of an even or slightly demand bottom velocities greater
The above reasons clarify the at the wall and on the right hand arched bottom, the following formula than 20cm/s. It is fully adequate,
importance of discussing the role side a single particle in the bottom applies for the local wall shear stress therefore, even taking possible
and impact of mixing and aeration boundary layer is shown according to Schlichting (1965): density fluctuations into account, to
processes on the biological treatment schematically.
apply bottom velocities greater than
process. The paper at hand focuses 15cm/s.
(4).
on mixing and presents the basic
design rules for the selection and 3 ATV: German Association for Water
layout of mixers for activated sludge For boundary layers that are and Pollution Control
treatment plants. Using the example turbulent from the start the following
of the design of mixers for a large formula can be obtained by recal-
wastewater treatment plant it is culation in contrast to the proposal
shown how an intelligent selection Figure 2: Change of direction of flow near the wall by Latzel (1986):
and a single particle in the bottom boundary layer
and design of mixers can help to
improve the reactor behavior and (5).
reduce the investment and operating
costs of a plant.
Figure 1: Mixing applications in wastewater treatment

1 BOD: Biological Oxygen Demand

2 COD: Chemical Oxygen Demand „The important role of mixing in aerated tanks
is highly underestimated in many designs.”
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