Short Term Bod Analyzer

Abstract

Wastewater generation and its subsequent treatment is a major problem for every industry and for the society as well. Prior to treatment, the wastewater to be monitored so as to permit their discharge into the local water resources. Amongst all the parameters for which the wastewaters are monitored, BOD is one of most important and frequently used parameters for estimating the level of water pollution. The control of wastewater treatment plants is very difficult or even impossible using the classical or conventional determination method for BOD. The conventional BOD test is very time consuming (3-5 days) procedure. So, it is not suitable for rapid, continuous, on-line process monitoring. Thus, there is need for rapid, continuous, on-line measurement techniques. This project describes an alternative method that could circumvent the weakness of the conventional BOD test. Fast determination of BOD could be achieved by the respirometric based BOD sensors. Respirometry is the measurement and interpretation of the respiration rate of activated sludge under well defined experimental condition. A number of respirometers have been available into the market for many years throughout the world but even today these are still very much designed for laboratory use and require a considerable technician involvement to keep them in operating condition. This project will also include real effluent study of Textile Industry. BOD values of real wastewater samples from Textile industry were analyzed using this respirometric method. Also, it has been found that it is possible to develop a correlation between BOD5 and BODst. Thus, time for BOD5 measurement would be reduced from some days to few hours using Respiometry.