Texas Beef-Processor Meets Stringent TN Limits Using MicroC® 2000 and Nitrack® Automation

The Texas beef-processing plant’s wastewater treatment facility operates two anaerobic lagoons discharging into two controlled swing-zone lagoons, each with eighteen aeration zones. Like many protein-processing plants, this facility produces wastewater with highly variable flowrates and contaminant concentrations.

Influent to the wastewater treatment facility produces TKN (total Kjeldahl nitrogen)concentrations of 275-450 mg/L, and COD(chemical oxygen demand) concentrations of800-3,000 mg/L. The plant’s location experiences high winds and drastic temperature swings that also pose challenges to managing the treatment lagoons and basins.

The wastewater treatment facility’s process achieved effluent concentrations of 150-200 mg/L nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N), enabling the facility to be compliant with its previous effluent TN (total nitrogen) discharge limit of 200 mg/L. However, this level of treatment effectiveness, plant design, and configuration would not be capable of meeting an upcoming new limit for TN of 75 mg/L — putting the facility’s operating permit at risk.