Back to search

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Full scale study of chemically enhanced primary treatment in Riviera de Sao Lourenco, Brazil

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Effective, low-cost wastewater treatment that permits removal of pollutants and the deactivation of pathogens is essential to protect public health. An emerging technology that has been proposed to accomplish this goal, is Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment, or CEPT. CEPT vastly improves the effectiveness of an existing wastewater treatment facility, enabling the plant to not only meet increasing flow demands, but to attain higher removal efficiencies at the same time. Similarly, in the case of a new treatment facility, it can be designed to treat larger amounts of flow, and/or the designed size can be decreased by as much as half, and still meet expected capacity. The governing principle behind CEPT is the enhancement of the primary settling process through the addition of low dosages of metal salts and extremely small amounts of an anionic polymer. These additions cause the particulate matter in the wastewater to coagulate and flocculate, thus creating larger particles, which in turn settle at a much faster rate. This thesis looks at the different forms by which CEPT can be implemented in wastewater lagoon systems, namely "pre-pond" and "in-pond" CEPT. While there is discussion of numerous CEPT plants, special attention is paid to the full-scale study and analysis of the CEPT upgrade at Riviera de Sao Lourenco, Brazil. This plant conducted full-scale tests of both "prepond" and "in-pond" CEPT. This thesis compares the advantages and disadvantages of "prepond" and "in-pond" CEPT, along with the effectiveness of each.

Degree

thesis:*
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2000

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Bourke, Mike R. (Mike Robert), 1976-
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Donald Harleman and Susan Murcott.

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8975
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8975

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Bourke, Mike R. (Mike Robert), 1976-. Full scale study of chemically enhanced primary treatment in Riviera de Sao Lourenco, Brazil. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8975