Technical and economical aspects of the new waste water treatment technologies

Waste water treatment process implies a biological stage in which water is aerated immerging fine bubble diffusers (FBD) in aeration tanks. As the compressed air is an expensive fluid and the waste water treatment impose certain parameters, the following issues raise: determination of the air flow rates at which bubble columns are stable in space and time; influence of suspensions in water on FBD operation; how to flow induced by the bubble columns into the liquid to restrain solid particles sedimentation; FBD assembling in tanks (in line, in chess, etc,). The aim of the study is to correlate these aspects in order to achieve an optimum mass transfer.