Detection of Wastewater Treatment Process Disturbances in Bioreactors Using the E-Nose Technology

Wastewater treatment processes are subject to numerous disturbances during biological treatment of wastewater. In order to achieve and sustain suitable conditions of the process, basic wastewater parameters should be frequently monitored. While great improvements have been made in the automatization of treatment process, little is known about automatic measuring systems that can detect unusual process conditions in a bioreactor. Tracking these parameters can be difficult and the time required for the determination might vary from several minutes to few days. The objective of this study is to evaluate the use of an electronic nose in-house device (based on a non-selective gas sensor array) for the detection of process disturbances in a lab-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) during biological treatment of wastewater with activated sludge. Measurements were performed during a 12-hours working cycle. Continuous analyses of the headspace were performed using a sensor array based on the resistive Metal Oxide Semiconductor type (MOS) gas sensor. Based on the data obtained and the PCA analysis, this study showed that the e-nose technology can be used to predict or retrieve information about potential disruptions during wastewater processes using the e-nose technology.