VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUND EMISSION RATE FROM DIFFUSED AERATION SYSTEMS .1. MASS-TRANSFER MODELING

The release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from wastewater treatment plants has recently caused great concern. In wastewater treatment plants, many operation units such as equalization and aeration involve oxygen transfer between wastewater and air. While oxygen is transferred from air to wastewater, VOCs are stripped from wastewater to air. Due to increasingly stringent environmental regulations, wastewater treatment operators have to do VOC inventory of their facilities. A mass transfer model for VOCs is therefore called for to assess VOC emission rates from wastewater treatment processes. Almost all existing methods adopt an oxygen mass transfer model standardized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to evaluate VOC emission rates. A new and more fundamental oxygen mass transfer model for diffused aeration systems was developed to assess the VOC emission rates. The new model provides better insight of the VOC mass transfer process and requires only aeration performance data to predict the VOC emission rates. The results and implications of both models were discussed and compared.