Grit particle characterization: Influence of sample pretreatment and sieving method

Abstract

Grit causes problems in water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs): clogging pipes, damaging pumps, and reducing the active volume of aeration tanks and anaerobic digesters by grit accumulation. Grit chambers are built to remove these particles. However, no standardized methodology exists to characterize grit particles for grit chamber design and operation despite the large observed variability in grit composition. Therefore, this paper proposes a combination and adaptation of existing methods to sample and characterize grit particles in view of proper grit chamber design and its modelling to ultimately optimize the efficiency of this important WRRF unit process. Characteristics evaluated included particle size distribution from sieving after different sample pretreatments, organic/inorganic fractions, and density.