Advanced Integrated Wastewater P

AIWPS©/OSWALD

Advanced Integrated Wastewater Pond System (AIWPS©) is a low cost, low maintenance but with high efficiency at treating wastewater. This system was invented by Dr Williams J. Oswald at University of Berkeley, California; thus, the system is termed Oswald system at most part in our report. Again, it is cheaper compared to conventional treatment systems such as activated sludge system and it also has several functional advantages over the facultative pond or fermentation pond.

AIWPS© is an integrated system where it is designed to have the same ability as a facultative pond and a fermentation pond altogether. The fermentation pit is designed as a small cone shaped pit protruded from the facultative pond. Thus, the facultative pond is atop of it. This design allows the solids settled at the bottom of the cone, minimizing the effect of wind mixing at the upper layer as well as enhancing the effect of fermentation as the dispersion of oxygen is inhibited at the anaerobic zone (Fermentation pit). The facultative pond (above fermentation pit) is an aerobic zone, where the biochemical reactions require oxygen to break down more biomass.

Note: The general description of the AIWPS© above is summarized from the Oswald Manual published by UC, Berkeley. We take no credit of inventing or developing the idea of the system. Nonetheless, we incorporated the idea of the Oswald system into our design of the treatment system and modify it in an extent.

This design has two major advantages:
1. Odor problem is minimized by this design. Biogases particularly Hydrogen Sulfide which contributes to the unpleasant smell are separated by a layer of aerobic zone that prevents large amount of such biogases released directly from the pond. Installation of gas collection vent can further reduce the biogas emission into atmosphere. In addition, algae growth on the surface of the pond is inevitable; however, research shows that small of amount algae if under appropriate control can convert biogases escaped from the bottom pit to other odorless gases while not overloading the system with excessive biomass.
2. The fermentation pit integrated at the bottom of facultative pond is capable to convert biosolids into biogases completely under an optimal condition. Although the fermentation process is slow down at lower temperature, the solid accumulation is slow compared to a regular facultative pond. The less solid accumulation, the less frequent the system will need to turn off for cleaning.