Tim Castillo is a Wastewater Facility Manager at Rivanna Wastewater Treatment Plant in Charlottesville, Virginia. He gave us a tour of the Rivanna facility, gave a presentation on the wastewater treatment process, and sent us data from the Rivanna plant with regular to influent and effluent concentrations of various compounds. We have corresponded with Mr. Castillo throughout the project.
Before our visit to Rivanna, the team had already decided we would be concentrating our efforts in wastewater treatment. We had conducted research into where wastewater originates and what kind of consequences exist, both pathogenic and environmental, if it goes untreated. The purpose of our visit, then, was to gain insight into what a device to improve the efficiency of wastewater treatment processes would look like.
While Castillo gave us a full tour, we were focused specifically on the Bardonpho process. This five-step process is the Biological, or Secondary, treatment because it uses bacteria to remove harmful compounds. We were focused on ammonia, as our previous research indicated the importance of keep effluent ammonia levels low. The Bardonpho process is multiple steps because, within the process, oxygen concentrations vary between anaerobic, anoxic, and aerobic. In the aerobic condition, aerators pump air to fuel nitrification. Nitrification is the oxidation of ammonia to nitrites, which are then converted to nitrates.