Capabilities, Reliabilities and Costs of Full-Scale Nutrient Removal Technologies

This paper summarizes full-scale performance of nutrient removal technologies for municipal wastewater treatment. The target limits that the technologies had to attain varied, and were as low as 3 mg/L Total Nitrogen and less than 0.1 mg/L Total Phosphorus. The reliability of the technologies employed at 27 facilities located throughout the United States and Canada were analyzed by calculating a coefficient of variation (COV) on one year of data. This methodology is recommended for future use by professionals in the nutrient removal field as a good basis for comparing data collected for both existing and emerging technologies. This paper also summarizes costs for capital, and operation and maintenance for available facilities. In selected cases, life cycle costs for nutrient removal were estimated using the CAPDETWorks model. The life cycle cost is a good measure of sustainability, and thus recommended in the future for process comparison.