Survey of a wastewater treatment plant microfauna by image analysis

Abstract

The microfauna present in the activated sludge of a wastewater treatment plant is mainly composed by bacteria, protozoa and metazoa. The protozoan species are quite sensitive to physical, chemical and operational processes making them, thus, precious indicators of the state of the plant. Several authors already established relationships between the predominance of certain species or group and some parameters of the plant, such as the biotic indices namely the Sludge Biotic Index. All the above-mentioned procedures demand the identification, classification and quantification of the different species. Normally this is done manually, which implies both time and expertise. In the present work a semi-automatic protozoan recognition procedure by means of image analysis is attempted. The program built for this purpose (ProtoRec v.3) was also used to study the evolution of the microfauna during transient operation times (stoppage and re-run). The results were rather satisfactory in terms of protozoa recognition and the survey of the transient phase allowed verifying the aging and degradation of the microfauna by means of the different predominant species.