Wastewater Treatment

Wastewater is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. The potable water becomes wastewater after it gets contaminated with natural or synthetic microbiological compounds that arise out of human activities, commercial, and industrial sources. On the other hand, wastewater treatment is the removal of impurities from wastewater before it reaches aquifers or natural bodies of water.

SANKOFA remains a reliable engineering consulting company in offering top quality, reliable services in design and construction of wastewater treatment plants in Uganda. Our wastewater treatment specialists combine expertise in design and operation of biological, physical, and chemical wastewater treatment processes to meet our clients’ needs for effective and efficient wastewater treatment facilities.

We design new wastewater treatment plants and upgrade existing facilities. Through our value engineering approach, we provide our clients with designs that meet their needs while achieving the goal of minimising construction and O&M costs.

We design for and undertake implementation of residential, commercial, industrial or municipal wastewater treatment systems. Our goal is to offer solutions that increase your production capacity and decrease your operating costs by optimising wastewater treatment energy processes. We design and deliver fit-for-purpose industrial wastewater and effluent treatment equipment. Our range of industrial wastewater treatment equipment includes up flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors (UASB), anaerobic baffled reactors (ABR), clarifiers, industrial oil separators, solids separators, dissolved air flotation (DAF), sludge thickening units, hydro cyclones, among others. Our effluent systems are fit for brewery, dairy, textile, wet coffee processing, sugar refineries, abattoir, food processing, leather tanning, paint, plastics recycling, pulp and paper, chemical, beverages, spent wash, distillery, pharmaceutical, and battery recycling industrial wastewater. Wastewater treatment plants vary in capacity and features, and our full spectrum of wastewater treatment technologies includes;

• Membrane biological reactors (MBR),
• Anaerobic membrane biological reactors (AnMBR),
• Moving bed bioreactors (MBBR),
• Sequencing batch reactors (SBR),
• Wastewater pumping stations (master lift stations),
• Compact wastewater treatment plants,
• Effluent treatment plants (ETP),
• Floating treatment wetlands (FTW) and floating red beds,
• Sewage lagoons,
• Biofilter septic systems,
• Packaged sewage treatment plants,
• Water resource recovery facilities (WRRF),
• Trickling media filters,
• Underground wastewater treatment plants,
• Decanting ponds and facultative ponds,
• Facultative membrane bioreactors (FMBR),
• Decentralised wastewater treatment systems (DEWATS),
• Wastewater treatment solutions for FOG (fats, oil, and grease). These systems remove oil emulsions, suspended solids, and organic materials from wastewater.

We offer high quality consulting and implementation services in the wastewater treatment arena, including;

• Technical performance audits for wastewater treatment plant efficiency,
• Environmental compliance audits for wastewater treatment plants,
• Feasibility study and engineering design of wastewater treatment biofilters,
• Undertaking biofilter bed condition and performance assessments,
• Feasibility study and detailed engineering design of wastewater treatment plants,
• Wastewater treatment plant instrumentation, automation, and SCADA system installation,
• Development of urban sewerage system masterplans,
• Engineering design and installation of master lift pump stations (wastewater pump stations),
• Undertaking wet weather improvements, intensifications, expansions, rehabilitation, and upgrades for existing wastewater treatment facilities,
• Engineering studies for energy and resource recovery from wastewater treatment facilities i.e. biogas energy from wastewater treatment plants and bagasse cogeneration plants, sludge cakes, and biosolids,
• Engineering studies for biosolids reuse options from WRRFs,
• Preparation of operation and maintenance manuals (O&M manuals) for wastewater treatment plants,
• Design and installation of compact wastewater treatment facilities,
• Undertaking environmental pollution assessment studies from wastewater plant discharges,
• Preparation of water source protection plans for discharging bodies of wastewater treatment plants,
• Preparation of wastewater treatment plant facility management plans (FMP),
• Undertaking air quality monitoring for detection of toxic, noxious, and flammable gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants,
• Undertaking planned preventive maintenance for wastewater treatment facilities,
• Undertaking condition assessments and technical inspections for wastewater treatment facilities,
• Undertaking occupational health and safety (OHS) measures for wastewater treatment plants.

Our wastewater treatment plants generally incorporate three levels of treatment i.e., primary, secondary, and tertiary/advanced treatment stages. These remove large particles of solid impurities, organic matter, and special pollutants respectively, ensuring the treated effluent is safe for disposal.

Undoubtedly, working with a well-established, knowledgeable partner for one’s wastewater treatment plant design and operation can be indispensable. Our solutions specialise in optimising each step of the client’s wastewater treatment process. We offer preventive maintenance programs and numerous maintenance solutions, including a full spectrum of technologies, genuine spare parts, and complex issue troubleshooting, all designed to suit client needs and to give clients peace of mind for the entire lifetime of the wastewater treatment facility.

Our design experts tailor every treatment system to the exact requirements of the customer, including the degree of automation desired for systems equipped with programmable logic controllers (PLCs), IoTs, and SCADA systems. These automation features maximize ease of operation. We help you choose the right wastewater treatment equipment to best suit your plant’s operation. Our selection of the processes is guided by thorough characterisation of the type of wastewater (effluent characterization) at hand while we emphasise process control. Our services include treatability studies, permitting assistance, project management, EPC turnkey installations, start-up, and training. In existing wastewater treatment facilities, our services include process control, plant optimization, comprehensive performance evaluations, energy efficiency (process energy audits), and process troubleshooting. We undertake wastewater treatment facility planning for wet weather improvements and capital planning for overall renewal and replacements, in the case of deteriorating infrastructure that is largely dysfunctional and faced with poor level of service, and inadequate quality and quantity of effluent, either due to aging or lack of maintenance.

We undertake supply for the following wastewater treatment components;

• Screw press sludge dewatering machines,
• High pressure slurry pumps (submersible sewage pumps),
• Dissolved air flotation (DAF) machines,
• Jet mixers,
• Landfill pumps,
• Grease trap waste pumpers,
• Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. These sensors offer real-time control for parameters such as pH adjustment, turbidity monitoring, TSS probes to capture real-time data and inform automated dozing (shift from manually operated to stand-alone systems with automation); automated monitoring of wastewater quality and automated adjustment of the coagulant dosage proportionally to the actual content of suspended solids in the wastewater. Our wastewater treatment and instrumentation engineers guide you on automation options, and configuration to meet your plant’s unattended operation/standalone,
• Wastewater process automation systems i.e., programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human machine interfaces (HMIs), variable frequency drives (VFDs), and SCADA systems. We are skilled in process automation, control systems design, motor control, etc.

Rationale for wastewater plant improvements.

The world is increasing in population and undergoing rapid urbanization. The urban land area consumed by existing wastewater treatment facilities is often landlocked and cannot support the growing urban population without process intensification. New approaches are critically needed to intensify treatment within existing tank volumes to accommodate sustained growth, or to reduce operational costs for existing capacities. In process intensification, we undertake treatment intensification and plant modernization and upgrade to enable the system significantly outperform conventional designs, and register performance improvements as regards effluent quality, energy consumption, and capital expenditures.

Wastewater treatment plant maintenance services.

Our service technicians are always on hand to keep your plant performing efficiently. We provide replacement and repair parts, as well as carry out preventive plant equipment inspections and emergency maintenance.

Our process for the design of wastewater treatment plants.

In development of wastewater management strategies for industries, as an expert on the subject matter, our plan aims at delivering a thorough and comprehensive solution for you. Firstly, we undertake a careful study of the entire industry processes, drawing our attention to the various waste streams (distinct areas of generation of wastewater), characterize each waste stream, and consequently develop a wastewater mass balance for the industry at glance. The main objective of undertaking the above study is to identify suitable and applicable waste minimization plans for each of the waste streams. These may include: improving plant operations, altering plant technology, material substitution or recycle/recovery/re-use etc. This other than minimizing wastewater is also aimed at achieving water use efficiency, and can also lead to other benefits such as energy efficiency. It is from these careful studies that a comprehensive wastewater management strategy that also includes selection and design of a suitable wastewater (pre-) treatment technology or a combination of technologies, complete with future effectiveness assessment plans is developed. Our selection and design of suitable technology prioritises energy and water resource recovery. This meticulous approach ensures that we provide a cost-effective, long-lasting, and high-performance system. Our wide access to reputable equipment manufacturers across the globe affords us the opportunity to offer best in class product brands for our clients.

Realtime wastewater monitoring.

We install systems that support improved wastewater management, a valuable tool for improving water availability, resource efficiency, and cost reduction, while supporting enhanced source control for harmful contaminants. These IoT data gathering units are positioned within client wastewater collection networks for event detection. Rather than depending upon entirely sample derived wastewater quality insights, our smart wastewater intelligence system uses a system of ‘internet of things’ (IoT) enabled data gathering units positioned within client wastewater collection networks. Real-time data gathering is central to smart pollution reduction. Condition sensors, dataloggers, and automated event-triggered samplers installed around collection networks provide the data needed to support smart pollution reduction.

The smart IoT units continuously collect wastewater data from the sewage network and transmit it into the cloud, where machine learning algorithms transform the data into actionable insights, helping trace events back to their sources. If the data-gathering unit is also equipped with a remote sampling unit, this same feedback determines the precise moment when grab samples should be taken in order to generate a representative profile of real-world wastewater contamination, and verify sensor data. IoT units are individually configured to suit each client’s needs and also include an automatic sampler, calibrated to collect samples whenever pollution events are detected, ensuring each event is not only registered and described by the in-network sensors, but an effective sample, profiling its exact nature is captured for further analysis and data validation.

The sensor notifies operators whenever a pollution event takes place by sending a text message or email depending on the operator’s preferences. This notification details the location at which the pollution event was first detected as well as the estimated time of arrival to the next point downstream.

Pollution events are detected using a proprietary pollution index. This pollution index analyses the correlation and trends of the water quality measurements collected by the system (pH, conductivity, ORP, temperature, organic load) to identify when pollution has contaminated wastewater in the collection system.