Tag: Monitoring

1. Overview of Mississippi’s Wastewater Infrastructure Mississippi’s wastewater infrastructure landscape represents a critical intersection of historical municipal challenges and unprecedented modern investment. Regulated primarily by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) under the purview of EPA Region 4, the state oversees hundreds of publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) ranging from small rural lagoon systems […]

1. Introduction to Puerto Rico’s Wastewater Infrastructure Puerto Rico’s wastewater infrastructure presents a unique and dynamic environment for consulting engineers, utility managers, and equipment vendors. Unlike most mainland U.S. states where utilities are managed at the municipal or county level, Puerto Rico’s entire public water and wastewater system is operated by a single entity: the […]

Introduction to Water Treatment Instrumentation & Controls: SCADA Sensors & Automation One of the most frequent and costly failures in modern water infrastructure is not structural or mechanical—it is a failure of visibility. When an aeration blower consumes 40% more energy than required because a dissolved oxygen sensor has drifted, or when a remote lift […]

INTRODUCTION In municipal and industrial water and wastewater facilities, a failing analytical sensor does not just drop a signal—it cascades into process upsets that can cost tens of thousands of dollars in chemical overdosing, cause severe corrosion, or trigger immediate regulatory compliance violations. Relying on blind assumptions rather than real-time data is no longer viable […]

Introduction to Multi-Stage Water Filtration Systems: 2-Stage to 7-Stage Compared One of the most frequent and costly specification errors in industrial and municipal water treatment is the misalignment of multi-stage filtration trains with the specific influent water profile. Over-engineering a system with redundant stages unnecessarily inflates capital expenditure (CAPEX) and creates parasitic pressure losses. Conversely, […]

Introduction: Navigating the Complexities of Membrane Separation A catastrophic decline in normalized permeate flux is an engineer’s worst nightmare, often resulting from improper pretreatment, aggressive recovery targets, or fundamental specification errors during the design phase. Whether you are scaling up municipal desalination or designing a zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) industrial loop, understanding the RO Water Treatment […]

Introduction Membrane separation technologies have become the backbone of modern municipal desalination, industrial process water generation, and advanced wastewater reuse. However, misjudging feed water chemistry or specifying the wrong membrane configuration can lead to catastrophic fouling, severe hydraulic imbalances, and operational expenses (OPEX) that rapidly eclipse capital cost savings. To navigate RO Systems & Buying […]

INTRODUCTION One of the most frequent critical specification mistakes in modern water and wastewater engineering is treating a membrane module as a commoditized “black box.” An engineer might specify an ultrafiltration (UF) system based solely on pore size and nominal flux, only to experience catastrophic fiber breakage during rigorous air scouring or rapid permeability decline […]

INTRODUCTION For decades, municipal and industrial water treatment facilities have relied on conventional polymeric membranes—primarily polyethersulfone (PES), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), and thin-film composite (TFC) polyamides—for microfiltration, ultrafiltration, and reverse osmosis. While these conventional materials revolutionized the industry, they are fundamentally constrained by the permeability-selectivity tradeoff (often referred to as the Robeson upper bound), high susceptibility […]

Introduction In modern municipal and industrial facilities, biosolids management frequently accounts for up to 50% of a plant’s total operating budget. Specifying the wrong sludge reduction technology can lead to catastrophic downstream issues, including foaming, sour digesters, excessive polymer consumption during dewatering, and skyrocketing disposal costs. Navigating the landscape of the Top Digester Manufacturers for […]