COMSOL Reveals How to Avoid Very Expensive Modifications to Wastewater Clarifier

Arie C. de Niet, Witteveen+Bos, Deventer, The Netherlands

A wastewater treatment plant encountered a problem with one of its redesigned clarifier tanks. A group of consulting engineers used COMSOL Multiphysics® and the Mixture Model application mode to determine that there was no need to make physical modifications that could have cost in the range of 1,000,000 in Euros; instead, adding a certain chemical to improve flock (flocculent) formation cost only 100,000 Euros — and thus modeling saved the company 90% of the costs.