Process monitoring and control

Anaerobic treatment of municipal wastewater has its own peculiarities given the low organic loading, volatile suspended solid content, and other specifics; however, monitoring and control approaches for sewage anaerobic biological systems share most principles as for industrial wastewater anaerobic treatment. The main key point for stable nominal operation in anaerobic bioreactors is to maintain sufficient active methanogenic biomass in reactors. The loss of methanogenic biomass can occur due to hydraulic washout, insufficient supply of methanogenesis substrates, inhibitions or toxicity including temperature shock. In this chapter, general key aspects when thinking on anaerobic treatment control are presented and discussed, including the most important variables for effective monitoring. Both conventional and more advanced strategies for process control are discussed with an emphasis on the process dynamics and the utilization of the available information from instrumentation to the best possible way.