Wastewater treatment is a biological process, which means it uses bugs, or bacteria, to do the work. The bugs feed on the waste matter and need oxygen to survive. Too little oxygen or too little food and the bugs begin to stress and become less effective. Too much food leads to too many bugs, which overloads the system. These crucial variables can be controlled by automation. ITT’s Royce Technologies is one of the most innovative companies in the wastewater treatment automation industry.

      It got there by keeping the bugs happy. “The key is to keep moving millions of gallons of water each day through the plant - all the while keeping the bugs happy with just the right amounts of oxygen and food,” says Jim Dartez, general manager of Royce Technologies, which was acquired by ITT in January 2002 and is now part of the Sanitaire value center.

      In 1989, Royce revolutionized the industry with the introduction of an interface detector with no moving parts which could make instantaneous measurements of solid levels in clarifiers. In the late 1990s, it introduced the first color-compensating solid sensor, which optically measures the amount of food or waste in the system. “Other sensors get fooled by different colors in the water and give less accurate measurements,” says Dartez. “Our system is color-compensating. To this day, nobody else has figured out how to do that.”

Latest breakthrough: SRT controller

             These breakthroughs set the table for Royce’s latest industry innovation - the Solids Retention Time (SRT) Controller. This intelligent controller uses the information supplied by Royce’s sensors to automatically make wasting decisions. It receives data from two to five solids and/or interface level analyzers, continuously performs a precise math algorithm utilizing the data, then automatically turns a wasting valve which feeds the activated solids into the biological reactor (where the bacteria do their work) at the optimum level. Royce’s technologies have taken wasting control to its highest level yet. In the past, wastewater plant operators would gather samples, wait for the solids to settle and dry in a laboratory, and then weigh them. It could take two to four hours, and only then would the operator be able to adjust the valves. “This is reacting to the...

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