This document discusses parameters for analyzing waste water quality. It describes the objectives of waste water analysis which include monitoring treatment plant efficiency. Physical analyses examine characteristics like color and odor, while chemical analyses determine substance amounts. Key parameters discussed include biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrogen, and solids. BOD testing measures oxygen consumed by bacteria breaking down organic matter over time. COD testing uses chemical oxidization to similarly assess ability to consume oxygen. Their ratio provides information on a waste water's biodegradability.

1. Routine Analysis of
Waste Water
Quality Parameter
NAMRATA JARIWALA, Lecturer
CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
S. V. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, SURAT

2. Objective
• Essential for an effective and economical waste
management programme.
• Helps in the choice of waste treatment methods
• Helps in deciding the self purification capacity of
natural bodies.
• Helps in deciding the efficiency of various
treatment units.
• Monitoring the treatment plant.

3. Types of Analysis
• Physical Analysis: Determine aesthetic quality.
• Chemical Analysis: Determine the amount of
chemical substances.

4. Points to be considered
• Methods of examination
• Expression of result
• Sampling points
• Sampling equipment and recording the
reading

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF WASTEWATER
Significant Parameters for
Physical Characteristics Chemical Characteristics Biological Characteristics
Solids –
Total, Suspended and Dissolved,
Volatile and Fixed or mineral solids
Organic contents –
BOD,COD, Fats, phenols
surfactants, oil and grease, etc.
Animals
Colour Inorganic contents-alkalinity,
chlorides,
nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorous, heavy
metals,
pH, carbohydrates etc.
Plants
Odour Gases – oxygen, methane, hydrogen
sulfide
Protista
Temperature & Turbidity Pathogenic organisms, Viruses

6. Physical Characteristic
(1) COLOUR
• Fresh sewages is grey in colour:- like soap solution.
• As time passes it begins to get black.
• The colour of industrial waste water depends upon the chemical processes
used in the industries.
(2) ODOUR
• Normally fresh sewage is not offensive.
• It starts to gets stale it begins to give offensive odour.
• Elimination of odour has become major consideration in the design and
operation of waste water collection, treatment and disposal facilities.
(3) TEMPERATURE:
• Generally higher than water supply.
• As the temperature increases the viscosity and bacterial activity increases.
• Solubility of gases in waste water decreases as increases in temperature.
• D.O. content decreases which affects the aquatic life.
• High temperature results the growth of the undesirable water plants in the
receiving water.

7. Physical Characteristic
(4) TURBIDITY
• It is a measure of light emitting property of waste water.
• The stronger or more concentrated sewage, the higher is its turbidity.
• Turbidity can be determine either by turbidity rod or by jackson’s turbidity
meter.
(5) TOTAL SOLIDS
• Sewage contains 99.9% of water and 0.1% of solids.
• The total solid contains of waste water is define as all the matter that remains
as a residue upon evaporation to 103 to 105 degree centigrade.
• Total solids are of three types (i) Suspended solids (ii) Colloidal solids and
(iii) Dissolved solids.
• S.S. are those which can be filtered out on a filter paper. i.e. Non-filterable
solids.
• S.S. can be divided as settleable solid and Non-settleable solids.
• The T.S. can be classified as fixed solids and volatile solids.

8. Chemical Characteristic
(1) pH Value:
• Generally fresh sewage is alkaline in nature.
• The determination of pH is important since certain treatment methods depends
on proper pH value.
(2) Chlorides contents:
• Chlorides are mineral salts and therefore are not affect biological action of
sewage.
• The chlorides contents can be measured by titrating the sample of waste water
with standard AgNo3 using potassium chromate as a indicator.
(3) Nitrogen Contents:
• The presence of nitrogen in waste water indicates the presence of organic
matter.
• Nitrogen is essential for the growth of plants and animals.
• Nitrogen data is require to evaluate the treatability of waste water by
biological process.

9. Chemical Characteristic
Nitrogen appears in the following different forms
(i) Ammonia nitrogen or free nitrogen.- Indicate old sewage.
(ii) Organic nitrogen
(iii) Albuminoid nitrogen – Indicates easily decomposable nitrogen presents.
(iv) Nitrites nitrogen – Partially decomposed organic matter.
(v) Nitrate nitrogen – Indices presence of fully oxidize organic matter.
(4) Oil and Grease:
• Clogged pipes and filters in winter.
• Interfere with biological action.
• Not easily decomposed by bacteria so necessary to remove from waste
water.
(5) Surfactants:
• Primary from synthetic detergent.
• The contents is determine by measuring the colour change in standard
solution of Methylene Bule dye.
• This interference in aeration of waste water.
• Now-a-days ABS is replace with LAS which is biodegradable

10. Chemical Characteristic
(6) Toxic compounds:- Bio-assay test
(7) Sulphates concentration:- Turbidity method
(8) D.O. Test:-
• D.O. is the amount of oxygen in the dissolve state.
• D.O. can be determine by Wrinker’s methods.
• The presence of D.O. in waste water is desirable for aquatic life and to
prevent from odour problem.

11. Biochemical Oxygen Demand:
Biochemical oxygen demand has been defined as the amount of oxygen required by the microorganisms
(mainly bacteria) to stabilize the biodegradable organic matter under aerobic conditions.
NOTE : As the oxygen consumed by the microorganisms is directly proportional to the amount of
biodegradable organic content, the BOD parameter indirectly measures the organic content of the
liquid.
NOTE : BOD parameter does not provide information about the amount of non-biodegradable
organic contents of the liquid waste.
Based on the first order kinetics of oxygen consumption by the microorganisms for carbonaceous organic
matter present in the wastewater, following equations are used to compute the values of ultimate BOD
(L0) and BOD at any time t (Lt).
Lt = L0e-k’t or Lt = L0 x 10-kt
and yt = L0(1 - e-k’t) or yt = L0(1 - 10-kt)
where Lt = BOD at any time t, mg/L L0 = ultimate BOD at time t = 0, mg/L
K’ = BOD rate constant to the base e, d-1
K = BOD rate constant to the base 10, d-1
= k’/e =k’/2.3 (normally assumed as 0.1 at 20°C)
yt = BOD exerted or used at any time t, mg/L

12. The temperature correction for BOD rate constant is done by using the following equation.
KT = K20 θ(T – 20)
Where KT = BOD rate constant at any temperature T°
K20 = BOD rate constant at temperature 20° C
θ = temperature coefficient factor (varies from 1.056 to 1.135)
= 1.047 (normally assumed for temperature range of 20 to 30°C)

13. The presence of a sufficient concentration of dissolved oxygen is critical to maintaining
the aquatic life and aesthetic quality of streams and lakes. Determining how organic
matter affects the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) in a stream or lake is integral to
water-quality management.
The decay of organic matter in water is measured as biochemical oxygen demand. Oxygen
demand is a measure of the amount of oxidizable substances in a water sample that can
lower DO concentrations.

14. The test for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is a bioassay procedure that
measures the oxygen consumed by bacteria from the decomposition of organic
matter (Sawyer and McCarty, 1978). The change in DO concentration is measured
over a given period of time in water samples at a specified temperature
There are two stages of decomposition of organic matter in the BOD test: a
carbonaceous stage and a nitrogenous stage.
Figure : Biochemical oxygen demand curves: (A) typical carbonaceous-demand curve showing the oxidation of
organic matter, and (B) typical carbonaceous- plus nitrogeneous-demand curve showing the oxidation of ammonia
and nitrite. (Modified from Sawyer and McCarty, 1978.)

15. The carbonaceous stage, or first stage, represents that portion of oxygen demand
involved in the conversion of organic carbon - to carbon dioxide.
The nitrogenous stage, or second stage, represents a combined carbonaceous plus
nitrogenous demand, when organic nitrogen, ammonia, and nitrite are converted to
nitrate. Nitrogenous oxygen demand generally begins after about 6 days.
For some sewage, especially discharge from wastewater treatment plants utilizing
biological treatment processes, nitrification can occur in less than 5 days if ammonia,
nitrite, and nitrifying bacteria are present.
The standard oxidation (or incubation) test period for BOD is 5 days at 20 degrees
Celsius (BOD5). The BOD5 value has been used and reported for many applications,
most commonly to indicate the effects of sewage and other organic wastes on
dissolved oxygen in surface waters.
The 5-day value, however, represents only a portion of the total biochemical oxygen
demand. Twenty days is considered, by convention, adequate time for a complete
biochemical oxidation of organic matter in a water sample, but a 20-day test often is
impractical when data are needed to address an immediate concern.

16. BOD TEST APPARATUS

19. Note that BOD results represent approximate stream oxygen demands because the laboratory
environment does not reproduce ambient stream conditions such as temperature, sunlight,
biological populations, and water movement.
Chemical Oxygen Demand
Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is a measure of the ability of chemical reactions to
oxidize matter in an aqueous system. The results are expressed in terms of oxygen so that
they can be compared directly to the results of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) testing.
The test is performed by adding a strong oxidizing solution of a dichromate salt (e.g.
potassium dichromate, K2Cr2O7) to a sample, boiling the mixture on a refluxing apparatus
for two hours, and then titrating the amount of dichromate remaining after the refluxing
period, with ferrous ammonium sulfate (FAS), at a known normality, to reduce the
remaining dichromate.
Generally, the COD is larger than the BOD exerted over a five-day period (BOD5), but there
are exceptions in which microbes of the BOD test can oxidize materials that the COD
reagents cannot.
For a raw, domestic wastewater, the COD/BOD5 ratio is in the area of 1.5-3.0.
Higher ratios would indicate the presence of toxic, non- biodegradable or less readily
biodegradable materials.

20. The COD test is commonly used because it is a relatively short-term, precise test with little
interference. However, the spent solutions generated by the test are hazardous. The liquids are
acidic, and contain chromium, silver, mercury, and perhaps other toxic materials in the sample
tested. For this reason laboratories are doing fewer or smaller COD tests in which smaller
amounts of the same reagents are used.
COD/BOD ratio
The ratio of COD to BOD can give an indication of the biodegradability of a wastewater.
i) In domestic sewage which is known to be readily biodegradable and treated
successfully world-wide using a variety of biological treatment methods, the COD/BOD
ratio varies typically from 1.5: 2.
Thus if the COD/BOD ratio of industrial wastewater is also < 2, this provides a good
indication that the wastewater can be treated biologically.
ii) If the COD/BOD ratio is high and generally >5:1 , this indicates that the wastewater is
non biodegradable , toxicity or nutrient imbalance is present and thus will present
problems if biological treatment selected.
iii) If COD/BOD falls between 2 – 5 :1 then this is a gray area. A lot of industrial
wastewaters fall into this category. Therefore, further studies are needed.