Monitoring wastewater treatment plants

The Monitoring Experts

To understand how wastewater treatment plants are monitored, it first helps to understand the processes behind how water is treated. David Montoya, our monitoring expert in this episode, takes us through the different phases that water goes through in a treatment plant, which include filtering, clarifying (such as with ozone or bacteria), and disinfecting. Then he explains the combination of operational technology (OT) and IIoT components involved, how these should be monitored (including the common protocols used), and the importance of predictive maintenance.
The challenges of wastewater treatment facilities are unique:

• The nature of water brings its own problems, such as corrosion or rusting of equipment.
• Quality control is a concern too, and this requires accurate measurements and historical data.
• There is a risk of cyber attacks (in fact, last year we featured an example of this on our blog - Cyberattack on water plant shows vulnerability of industrial networks
• Energy consumption of treatment facilities is a major concern

David explains how monitoring can help manage each of these specific challenges.
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Website: themonitoringexperts.com
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Let us know your monitoring use cases, ask us a monitoring question, or just give us general feedback about the podcast:

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Get in touch on Twitter: @monitoringxpert
Website: themonitoringexperts.com
Visit the Paessler blog for more from the monitoring experts.

Capitole

1. Introduction to the episode and David Montoya (00:00:00)

2. Wastewater processes: filtering (00:03:55)

3. Wastewater processes: grit chamber (00:05:41)

4. Wastewater processes: primary clarifying basins (00:06:13)

5. Wastewater processes: clarifying with bacteria and ozone (00:06:38)

6. Wastewater processes: disinfection (00:07:27)

7. Points of failure: operational perspective (00:08:37)

8. Points of failure: water quality (00:10:17)

9. Points of failure: cyber security (00:11:29)

10. How monitoring can help with cyber security (00:12:22)

11. Monitoring environmental metrics (00:14:43)

12. Predictive maintenance for OT equipment (00:16:32)

13. The challenge of energy consumption in wastewater treatment facilities (00:18:01)

14. Protocols used in wastewater treatment plants (00:20:40)