Report on Site Visit at Batu Ferringhi Sewage Treatment

Plant

Prepared by
8 NOVEMBER 2017
INTRODUCTION

School of Civil Engineering USM has conducted a site visit to Batu Ferringhi sewage
treatment plant in Pulau Pinang. The site visit has been held on 1 November 2017 for some
review on an actual sewage treatment plant site. Prof Hamidi is the person in charge to handle
this site visit. From the site visit that we have experienced, we able to know more detail about
the treatment process occur at the Batu Ferringhi Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). It takes
about 2 hours to arrive at Batu Ferringhi Sewage Treatment Plant. After arrive to the site,
meeting with the people in charge of guiding us, a short brief and video presentation about
the project was given by staffs there to start the tour around the site.
All the safety precaution was given by site supervisor before student were guide to waste
water treatment process and while walking through, the supervisor has explained to us some
types of equipment used. We were exposed to various machineries and also had the chance to
observe the types of equipment including rotary drum fine screen, air compressor system,
oxidation biological reactor, gas holder and many more. We finished our tour at about 4.00
pm before came back to campus.
Safety is after all the most important aspect in a construction project. This outdoor experience
provided us with a more in-depth and hands on experience on civil engineering water
treatment. We were able to question, understand and absorb the logic behind the
machineries,techniques, and methodology theory learnt in class.
OBJECTIVE

To familiarise ourselves with the operations at the water treatment plant site.
To verify and supplement information presented in the self-study report.
To give us an opportunity to explore and recognize different sorts of treatment
facilities and technologies used.
To make us understand the significance of teamwork while working together with
the team members on site
To understand and be aware of the importance of safety on site where we need to
take care by following the safety precautions
BACKGROUND
Batu Ferringhi STP is located on a 1.3 ha site at the north of Penang Island.It utilizes
sequencing Batch Reactor Technology designed to serve an ultimate population of 60,000
Population Equivalent.
The Batu Ferringhi STP is designd to comply with Standarb B of Environmental Quality
(Sewage) Regulations 2009.This is based on incoming raw sewage strength of 300mg/l of SS
and 250 mg/l of BOD5.The plant is also designed to achive nitrogen removal thorugh
nitrification and denitrification process along with BOD5 removal in reactor tanks.The
treated effluent will be discharged via marine outfall structure constructed approximately
500mm to seabed.
The construction of the Batu Ferringhi Sewage Treatment Plant started on 14 May 2014 abd
was completed on 13 Jan 2017.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Batu Ferringhi STP utilisez Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR)Process,which has capability to
remove BOD,COD,Suspended Solids(SS) and Nitrogen

Items Population Equivalent(PE) Sewage Flow Daily

Average(m3/d)
Design 60,000 13,500
Connected(July 2017) 36,500 8,200

Batu Ferringhi sewerage catchment is located the coastal area north of Penang Island and
Covers an area of approximately 327 ha.The catchment runs from Royal Malay Army Camp
from one end of the catchment to Petronas Rest House at the other end,and is boundd on the
north by the Andarman Sea and all its remaining boundary by Hutan Simpan Bukit Kerajaan
dan Hutan Simpan Teluk Bahang with Sungai Batu Ferringhi and Sungai Mas crossing the
catchment from south to the north of the catchment.
Sewage treatment(domestic wastewater treatment) is the process of removing contaminants
from waste water and household sewage.Its objective is to produce an environmentally safe
treated effluent suitable for disposal or reuse.The schematic of the liquid and solids treatment
process is shown below.
Overall Sewage Treatment Process

Sewage Influent

Main Inlet Preliminary Equilization Tank

Treatment

SBR Tanks

Sludge Sludge
Dewatering(20% Thickening(4%
dry solid) dry solid)

Biosolid disposed
offsite
Liquid Treatment Process

Wastewater treatment system is categorized to primary, secondary and tertiary treatment.

Primary treatment is physical stage and it function is to protect the equipment and pipes of
the station. Secondary treatment is biological process and it function is carrying out all
operations and biotic oxidation of organic material and disposal of toxins. Tertiary treatment
is Chemical process and it function is filtering clear water that comes from the clarifiers and
then disinfected by UV ligh or chlorine.

Primary treatment

Primary treatment process includes main pump station, screen, grit chamber removal
and Settling Tank "Primary sedimentation tank ".
Firstly, the water will be pumped from the sewage lift stations, mean pump station and
tanker filling to the basic station. Then the influent sewage water collects in inlet
chamber. After that it goes to screen that remove all large objects and floating materials
that greater than 3 mm, like cans, rags, sticks and plastic packets which may damage the
equipment because of clogging of pipes and accumulate in settling basins.
Then , it goes to grit chamber removal to remove inert and inorganic material like sand,
gravel, road grit, metal and glass pieces to protect equipment from abrasion and prevent
pipe clogging, accumulation in settling basin and digesters. The length of the channel of
grit removal is between 10 20 cm and the depth of it 30 40 cm. There is counter the
speed of water flow that count the flow of water and controlled. The speed of flowing
water is between 30 35 m/s
Finally, the sewage water goes to settling tank that used to remove the suspended
organic solids by gravity settling and thus reduce the load on subsequent biological
treatment units. So the solid will settle at the bottom of the tank and it will form as
sludge, then it removes by mechanical scrapers. Also at the top of tank, the grease and
oils rise to the surface and they are removed by a skimming system. As shown in
figure1, the process of primary treatment.
 Figure 1

Secondary treatment

Secondary treatment is known as biological treatment. It includes two distribution

boxes, two oxidation ditches, two clarifiers, recycle activated sludge pumps and filter
feed pumps.

The wastewater goes and collects in the distribution box 1 which is used for mixing
water and distribute evenly to oxidation ditches. The length of Oxidation ditch are
between 30 40 m and it is between 4.5 5 m depth. Then the wastewater goes to
Oxidation ditches which consists of large tanks is divided into four parts (anaerobic,
aerobic, anaerobic and aerobic basins) and provide fans to move the water and mix it
with dissolve oxygen and bacteria to grow and removed by settling tank .

The anaerobic basins content anaerobic bacteria which is in the nitrification process
that elimination of nitrite and convert it to ammonia as indicates in the following
equation[ No3 N3 ] . It must take care on the amount of dissolved oxygen in the
basins which has been 0.5 mg per liter.
While aerobic basin content aerobic bacteria and should provide suitable environment
for growing bacteria in aerobic basins by provide dissolve Oxygen and fans for mixing.
The amount of bacteria in the basin is around 600 m3. Then the bacteria get rid of
ammonia and converted to nitrate as indicates in the following equation
[ NH3 No2,No3 ] by nitrification process . It must take care on the amount of
dissolved oxygen in the basin which has been 1- 4 milligrams per liter.

After one day of Oxidation process, the wastewater will collect again in distribution
box2 to mix it and distribute evenly to two clarifiers to separate the clear water from the
sludge by settling the sludge and the sludge appear in three colors, white, brown and
black. White sludge means the size of bacteria very small, brown sludge means the
process going well and black sludge means the amount of sludge high in water and
should remove .The sludge daily test is done to determine the amount of deposition of
the active sludge in the oxidation basin by using Cylinder of measuring sludge. It must
the amount of sludge be between 300-450 milligrams per liter. If the quantity of sludge
increased, then it must discharge to the sludge drying beds.
The sludge will goes to recycle activated sludge pumps to treat the sludge and use it for
agriculture purpose as form of fertilizer and the clear water goes to filter feed pumps
and then to sand filters. As shown in Figure 2

Figure 2
 Tertiary treatment

Tertiary treatment is Chemical treatment of the basic filtering is relatively clear water
that comes from the clarifiers and then disinfected by UV light or chlorine. It consists of
sand filters, chlorine dosing and treated water tank.
The water goes to sand filters by filter feed pumps that used to get rid of suspended
solids in the effluent of the clarifiers. The sand filter is consist of one layer of carbon to
protect the filter from corrosion then three layers of sand in different sizes small ,
medium and large. The capacity of water in one filter is between 130 m 3 160 m3 and
the water remain one day in filter.
Then the water disinfects by chlorine systems that use chlorine gas which remains 6
hours in water to kill bacteria and germs which remaining in the effluent of sand filters.
Finally the treated water will saved in treated effluent tank. As shown in figure 3

Figure 3
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, from this site visit, we are able to know the flow or sequences of wastewater
treatment plant at Batu Ferringhi Sewage Treatment Plant.. Before we go back to USM, we
are able to see the control system of the plant and the laboratory. Although we are not able to
visit every part of the sewage treatment plant process due to the lack of time, but this visit has
gave us many information regarding to the subject EAP315 Wastewater Engineering.