An Introduction to Domestic Wastewater Treatment

J. Paul Guyer, P.E., R.A., Fellow ASCE, Fellow AEI

Course Outline

1.  General Considerations
2.  Site Selection 
3.  Treatment Requirements
4.  Basic Design Considerations

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will:

• Learn the design and operational objectives of domestic wastewater treatment plants;
• Learn about the major factors to consider in siting domestic wastewater treatment plants, including topography, availability of a suitable discharge point, working and public areas, and community master plan considerations;
• Learn about typical compounds that inhibit biological wastewater treatment processes and how they can be mitigated;
• Learn the definitions and characteristics of preliminary, primary, secondary and advanced domestic wastewater treatment processes;
• Learn about preliminary treatment processes including equalization, neutralization, temperature adjustment, nutrient addition, screening and grit removal;
• Learn about primary treatment processes including sedimentation and dissolved air flotation;
• Learn about secondary treatment processes including activated sludge, aerated ponds, aerobic-anaerobic ponds, trickling filters, chemical oxidation, chemical mixing flocculation and clarification, gravity filtration, pressure filtration, dissolved air flotation with chemicals, and anaerobic contact;
• Learn about advanced treatment processes including advanced carbon adsorption, micro straining filtration, land treatment, subsurface disposal, and groundwater recharge;
• Learn about sludge treatment processes including anaerobic digestion, aerobic digestion, autoclaving, elutriation, vacuum filtration, centrifugation, sand beds and presses; and
• Learn about sludge disposal including incineration, wet oxidation, land disposal and sanitary landfills.

Intended Audience

This course is intended for engineers and other design and construction professionals wanting an introduction to the process technologies, equipment and design practices needed to treat domestic wastewater and treat and dispose of the resultant sludge.

Benefit for Attendee

This course will give engineers and others an introduction to preliminary, primary, secondary and advanced domestic wastewater treatment processes.

Course Introduction

This is an introduction to the technology, systems and design practices for domestic wastewater treatment processes and plants.

About Course Author

Paul Guyer is a registered mechanical engineer, civil engineer, fire protection engineer and architect with over 35 years experience in the design of buildings and related infrastructure.  For an additional 9 years he was a senior-level advisor to the California Legislature on infrastructure and capital outlay issues.  He has designed and supervised the design of hundreds of construction projects requiring the preparation of detailed working drawings and specifications for federal, state and local public agencies and private companies.  He is a graduate of Stanford University and has held numerous national, state and local positions with the American Society of Civil Engineers and National Society of Professional Engineers.

Course Content

The course content is contained in the following PDF file:

An Introduction to Domestic Wastewater Treatment

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

 

Course Summary

This course will give you professional tools that will allow you to address domestic wastewater treatment projects and issues in your company or agency.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

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DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

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