How States are Improving Wastewater System Operations
The septic systems in use on the cape can generally be replaced with new versions or retrofitted with components to add denitrification capabilities, says Baumgaertel — a process that helps transfer the urea excreted in urine to ammonia, which is then further broken down and eventually dispersed as nitrogen gas.
However, to confirm the process is consistently working and the recommended total maximum daily load limits for nitrogen aren’t being exceeded, the system needs a monitoring element — such as a new sensor MASSTC recently analyzed in its test facility — a sensor created by Qingzhi Zhu, an associate professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences in New York.
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“Total maximum daily loads are basically a measurement of how much you can put into a water body before you start to have a really strong negative effect,” Baumgaertel says. “The intent is you target the technologies you’re using to remove that number of kilograms of nitrogen per year. The sensor would give you the opportunity to better assess that.”
Measuring 1 cubic foot, the box-shaped prototype is outfitted with small tubes used to collect samples.
“The sensor is a neat little package,” Baumgaertel says. “It’s designed to connect to the cloud and upload results so a system operator or regulator could look at the data in real time and assess whether that individual septic system is removing the amount of nitrogen we were expecting.”