Gustaf Olsson

• PhD, Docent
• Professor Emeritus at Lund University

This paper presents a modelling study aimed at minimizing the environmental foot print of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) for wastewater treatment. Specifically, an integrated model for MBR was employed in view of the management optimization of an MBR biological nutrient removal (BNR) pilot plant in terms of operational costs and direct greenhouse gase...

The aim of this paper is to describe the state-of-the art computer-based techniques for data analysis to improve operation of wastewater treatment plants. A comprehensive review of peer-reviewed papers shows that European researchers have led academic computer-based method development during the last two decades. The most cited techniques are artif...

Renewable energy technologies can make a major contribution to universal access to both energy and water in a sustainable way. In many regions of the world with energy poverty there are abundant renewable energy sources. In this review it is described how solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy have a huge potential to supply clean water, in partic...

Water resources and water quality are closely related to oil exploration, refining and distribution. Since oil products provide over 90% of transport energy in almost all countries it is apparent that any oil operation is an inherent risk for water resources. Since water supplies will be increasingly stressed as a consequence of climate change and...

The present study explores the interlinkages among the operational variables of a University of Cape Town (UCT) integrated Fixed Film Activated sludge (IFAS) membrane bioreactor (MBR) pilot plant. Specifically, dedicated experimental tests were carried out with the final aim to find-out a constitutive relationship among operational costs (OCs), eff...

Today, there is increasing pressure on the water infrastructure and although unsustainable water extraction and wastewater handling can continue for a while, at some point water needs to be managed in a way that is sustainable in the long-term. We need to handle water utilities “smarter”. New and effective tools and technologies are becoming avail...

The utility analysis and integration model (UAIM) is a proposed business reference model that offers a structured framework to help utilities succeed on the enterprise level by facilitating the coordination and integration of people, process, and technology. The UAIM describes how a utility works and is proposed as a high-level business reference m...

Rapid and important developments in the area of energy - water nexus over the last two to three years have been significant. This new edition of Water and Energy: Threats and Opportunities is timely and continues to highlight the inextricable link between water and energy, providing an up-to-date overview of the subject with helpful detailed summar...

To reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and help mitigate climate change, urban water systems need to be adapted so that electrical energy use is minimised. In this study, energy data from 2011 was used to quantify energy use in China’s urban water supply sector. The objective was to calculate the energy co-benefits of urban water conservation pol...

A novel method was developed to convert complex polymer organic waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Palm oil mill effluent (POME) was used as carbon source within this study. The designed laboratory scale system includes two coupled reactors; an anaerobic fermenter for volatile fatty acids (VFAs) production followed by an aerobic sequencing ba...

A novel method was developed to convert complex polymer organic waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Palm oil mill effluent (POME) was used as carbon source within this study. The designed laboratory scale system includes two coupled reactors; an anaerobic fermenter for volatile fatty acids (VFAs) production followed by an aerobic sequencing b...

Full-scale experiments have been carried out to adapt the activated sludge model ASM2d to include the influence of metal dosage (Fe3+ and Al3+) for phosphorus removal. Phosphorus removal rates, nitrification rates, as well as pH and sludge settling performance, were evaluated as functions of the metal dosages. Furthermore, models relating certain p...

Key developments of instrumentation, control and automation (ICA) applications in wastewater systems during the past 40 years are highlighted in this paper. From the first ICA conference in 1973 through to today there has been a tremendous increase in the understanding of the processes, instrumentation, computer systems and control theory. However,...

The prediction of the influent load is of great importance for the improvement of the control system to a large wastewater treatment plant. A systematic data analysis method is presented in this paper in order to estimate and predict the periodicity of the influent flow rate and ammonia (NH3) concentrations: 1) data filtering using wavelet decompos...

It is a common principle that aeration to a wastewater treatment reactor performing aerobic carbon and ammonium oxidation should be minimised while satisfactory carbon and ammonium removal is achieved. The implementation of this principle in a plug-flow like aerobic reactor has so far been in an ad-hoc manner in the absence of a theoretically optim...

Water and energy are inextricably linked, and as a consequence both have to be addressed together. This is called the water-energy nexus. When access to either is limited, it becomes obvious that it is necessary to consider their interdependence. Population growth, climate change, urbanization, increasing living standards and food consumption will...

This review covers automatic control of continuous aeration systems in municipal wastewater treatment plants. The review focuses on published research in the 21st century and describes research into various methods to decide and control the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration and to control the aerobic volume with special focus on plants with nitro...

The effects of resin dosage, pH of the medium and contact time on the adsorption of Ni2+, Zn2+ and Pb2+ from battery industry wastewater using Dowex 50 W ion exchange resin were investigated. Batch-mode experiments were carried out to determine the adsorption equilibrium. The adsorption parameters were optimized using a Response Surface Methodologi...

This paper reviews the performance of MBR in treating high strength industrial wastewater. The scope covers the operation, constraints and mitigation of the system in general views. High strength wastewater can be successfully treated by using membrane bioreactor (MBR) in different conditions according to the types and characteristics of wastewater...

High PHA production and storage using palm oil mill effluent (POME) was investigated using a laboratory batch Bio-PORec® system under aerobic-feeding conditions. Results showed that maximum PHA was obtained at a specific rate (q(p)) of 0.343C-mol/C-molh when air was supplied at 20ml/min. The PHA yield was found to be 0.80C-mol/C-mol acetic acid (HA...

When implementing real-time process control systems at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), several technical problems may have to be addressed. Sensors have to be reliable. Controllers should be properly designed and tuned. Fault detection should be implemented and safety nets designed. Actuators must have adequate control authority to deal with c...

ICA - instrumentation, control and automation - is a hidden technology. It is ubiquitous in all industrial processes, including water and wastewater treatment systems. Still, as long as everything works fine, it is not noted but when things go wrong it will be observed. ICA has now about forty years of history in water and wastewater systems and is...

Aerobic granular sludge has a number of advantages over conventional activated sludge flocs, such as cohesive and strong matrix, fast settling characteristic, high biomass retention and ability to withstand high organic loadings, all aspects leading towards a compact reactor system. Still there are very few studies on the strength of aerobic granul...

Building an aeration system requires a major investment, with blowers typically being the single most costly piece of equipment at a WWTP. Aeration is also responsible for about 50-60 % of the total energy demand for an activated sludge plant. Moreover the DO concentration controls which processes are active or kinetically limited. The investment a...

This article describes the systematic design of a control structure for a biological wastewater treatment process as given by the test-bed Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1 (BSM1) and Activated Sludge Model No. 1 (ASM1). The objective of this work was to formalize and implement a systematic and yet simple procedure for the selection of control struc...

Water has always been mankind's most precious resource -there are no substitutes. The struggle to control water resources has shaped human political and economic history. Population growth and economic development are driving a steadily increasing demand for new clean water supplies and it is well documented that lack of access to clean water has m...

Biofouling is a crucial factor in membrane bioreactor (MBR) applications, particularly for high organic loading operations. This paper reports a study on biofouling in an MBR to establish a relationship between critical flux, Jc, mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) (ranging from 5 to 20 g L-1) and volumetric loading rate (6.3 kg COD m-3 h-1) of pa...

Advanced control is increasingly in demand in water and wastewater treatment systems. Various case studies have shown significant savings in operating costs, including energy costs, and remarkably short pay back times. It has been demonstrated that instrumentation, control, and automation (ICA) may increase the capacity of biological nutrient remov...

This study aims to establish the scientific link between typical treatment and biodegradability of different COD fractionations of palm oil mill effluent (POME), by means of respirometric analysis and model calibration. Typical treatment processes are determined by the treatment methods applied to the POME. POME treatments are operated under dynami...

The pollution load of palm oil mill effluent (POME) is in the range of 50,000 mg COD/L. With more than 500 palm oil mills, Malaysia produces some 13.9 million tonnes of crude palm oil annually and generates around 35 x 106 m3 POME. Typically, raw POME is difficult to degrade because it contains significant amounts of oil (tryacylglycerols) and degr...

Activated sludge models (ASMs) have been widely used as a basis for further model development in wastewater treatment processes. Values for parameters to be used are vital for the accuracy of the modeling approach. A continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR), as open respirometer with continuous flow for 20 h is used in ASMs. The dissolved oxygen (DO)...

Modern industrial customers, such as pulp and paper industries, have increased the vulnerability to power quality problems. A voltage source converter based high-voltage direct current (VSC-HVDC) transmission has the potential to offer high power quality when transmitting large amount of power. Therefore, in this paper, a VSC-HVDC transmission is p...

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) has a number of advantages over conventional activated sludge flocs, such as cohesive and strong matrix to allow organisms to grow in fixed positions, fast settling ability, high biomass retention, and ability to withstand high organic loadings, leading towards a compact reactor system. However, to date studies on the...

This paper studies three different frequency controllers and their effects on the voltage disturbance ride-through capability of a VSC-HVDC supplied industrial system. The idea of implementing frequency controller is to improve the power quality of industrial plants by slightly decreasing the VSC output voltage frequency since industrial processes...

This paper presents a voltage-source-converter (VSC)-HVDC-supplied industrial system with onsite generation where the VSC-HVDC and generator are taking part in the voltage and frequency control. The reason for using a frequency controller in the converter is to increase the ridethrough capability of the VSC-HVDC-supplied industrial system by exploi...

In aerobic granular sludge (AGS) technology, aerated-mixing is commonly used to introduce shear effects in the system. Sufficient shear stress is needed for the formation of stable and dense AGS. However, over mixing might affect the AGS settling characteristic. Furthermore, in pilot or full scale implementation, as the size of the reactor increase...

The growing water and sanitation crisis in the world calls for enormous efforts from water professionals as well as economic and political leaders. The climate change contributes to the acuteness of the problem, with dryer areas in some parts of the world and severe floods and rains in other parts. The European Water Supply and Sanitation Technolog...

This paper investigates the potential of using controlled hydraulic transients for non-intrusive assessment of the internal condition of water transmission pipelines. Deterioration of pipelines is a natural process. An effective tool for evaluating the state of pipeline interiors could thus be extremely useful for planning rehabilitation or identif...

Advanced control is getting increasingly demanded in water and wastewater treatment systems. Various case studies have shown significant savings in operating costs, including energy costs, and remarkably short payback times. It has been demonstrated that instrumentation, control and automation (ICA) may increase the capacity of biological nutrient...

This paper investigates the potential of using controlled hydraulic transients for non-intrusive assessment of the internal condition of water transmission pipelines. Deterioration of pipelines is a natural process. An effective tool for evaluating the state of pipeline interiors could thus be extremely useful for planning rehabilitation or identif...

This paper investigates the potential of using controlled hydraulic transients for non-intrusive assessment of the internal condition of water transmission pipelines. Deterioration of pipelines is a natural process. An effective tool for evaluating the state of pipeline interiors could thus be extremely useful for planning rehabilitation or identif...

Instrumentation, control and automation (ICA) are key technologies in modern water and wastewater systems. Ever present disturbances make it necessary to automatically attenuate their consequences. A wastewater treatment system is load driven, while a water distribution system is demand driven. Despite the variability the system outputs have to be...

A state-dependent variable-gain control system is implemented to follow the characteristics of a laboratory-scale up-flow anaerobic fixed-bed reactor dynamically. The transition from one state to another is determined on an hourly basis, depending on difference between the setpoint of the reactor pH and its true value. Considerable improvement of t...

An algorithm for the burst detection and location in water distribution networks based on the continuous monitoring of the flow rate at the entry point of the network and the pressure at a number of points within the network is presented. The approach is designed for medium to large bursts with opening times in the order of a few minutes and is sui...

Instrumentation, control and automation (ICA) are key technologies in modern water and wastewater systems. Despite the variability of the influents the system outputs have to be satisfactory. Economic realities and new water directives encourage the application of ICA to make a maximum use of plant and other storage capacities. The final goal of pr...

Security concerns are driving current research to develop means of detecting toxic chemicals in wastewater influents as few online instruments are currently available for this purpose. Online respirometers such as the STIPTox are the obvious choice using existing, established technology. One of these units was recently used successfully in the WERF...

An algorithm for the detection and location of sudden bursts in water distribution networks combining both continuous monitoring of pressure and hydraulic transient computation is presented. The approach is designed for medium and large bursts that are the result of the sudden rupture of the pipe wall or other physical element in the network and ar...

This paper investigates the potential of using controlled hydraulic transients for the non-intrusive internal condition assessment of water transmission pipelines. Deterioration of pipelines is a natural process. The effective tool for evaluating the state of the pipeline interior could be extremely useful while planning the rehabilitation or ident...

This paper presents a new non-intrusive methodology for testing the seal quality of inline stop valves. An inline stop valve is a common element of the water supply system, both in large diameter transmission pipelines and in distribution networks. A good quality valve seal is essential for executing an isolation procedure. The proposed technique u...

nstrumentation, control and automation (ICA) in wastewater treatment systems is now an established and recognised area of technology in the profession. There are obvious incentives for ICA, not the least from an economic point of view. Plants are also becoming increasingly complex which necessitates automation and control. Instrumentation, Control...

Sudden pipe breaks occur in water transmission pipelines and distribution mains. The consequences of these breaks can be very expensive because of the service interruption, the cost of repair, and damage to surrounding property and infrastructure. The costs associated with the pipeline breaks can be reduced by minimizing the break detection and loc...

An algorithm for the burst detection and location in water distribution networks based on the continuous monitoring of the flow rate at the entry point of the network and the pressure at a number of points within the network is presented. The approach is designed for medium to large bursts with opening times in the order of a few minutes and is sui...

This paper presents results from testing of a burst detection and location technique on a water transmission pipeline. The primary targets of the method are medium and large bursts that are the result of a sudden rupture of a pipe wall or other physical element in the pipeline system. The technique is based on the continuous monitoring of the press...

Modelling: Plant Dynamics Basic Modelling Advanced Modelling Empirical or Black-Box Models Experiments and Data Screening Principles of Parameter Estimation Fitting and Validating Models Simulators. Diagnosis: Diagnosis - an Introduction Quality Management Model Based Diagnosis Knowledge Based Systems. Control: Goals and Strategies Disturbances Man...

An algorithm for the detection and location of sudden bursts in water distribution networks combining both continuous monitoring of pressure and hydraulic transient computation is presented. The approach is designed for medium and large bursts that are the result of the sudden rupture of the pipe wall or other physical element in the network and ar...

Storm tanks, or equalization basins, have been used for many years in sewer or wastewater treatment systems to reduce the amount of combined sewer overflows. In this paper, a systematic control of an equalization basin is used not only to dampen or reduce the hydraulic load, but also to systematically improve the effluent quality in a nitrogen remo...

A computer system for automation has to satisfy many requirements that we take more or less for granted. It has to run around the clock since a production break may cost enormous amounts of money. It has to work in real time taking various time requirements and process disturbances into consideration. Whatever happens, the system has to behave in a...

Sudden pipe breaks occur in water transmission pipelines and distribution mains. The consequences of these breaks can be very expensive because of the service interruption, the cost of repair, and damage to surrounding property and infrastructure. The costs associated with the pipeline breaks can be reduced by minimizing the break detection and loc...

An algorithm for the burst detection and location in water distribution networks based on the continuous monitoring of the flow rate at the entry point of the network and the pressure at a number of points within the network is presented. The approach is designed for medium to large bursts with opening times in the order of a few minutes and is sui...

An algorithm for the detection and location of sudden bursts in water distribution networks combining both continuous monitoring of pressure and hydraulic transient computation is presented. The approach is designed for medium and large bursts that are the result of the sudden rupture of the pipe wall or other physical element in the network and ar...

This paper investigates the potential of using controlled hydraulic transients for the non-intrusive internal condition assessment of water transmission pipelines. Deterioration of pipelines is a natural process. The effective tool for evaluating the state of the pipeline interior could be extremely useful while planning the rehabilitation or ident...

This paper presents a new non-intrusive methodology for testing the seal quality of inline stop valves. An inline stop valve is a common element of the water supply system, both in large diameter transmission pipelines and in distribution networks. A good quality valve seal is essential for executing an isolation procedure. The proposed technique u...

This paper presents results from testing of a burst detection and location technique on a water transmission pipeline. The primary targets of the method are medium and large bursts that are the result of a sudden rupture of a pipe wall or other physical element in the pipeline system. The technique is based on the continuous monitoring of the press...

An algorithm for the burst detection and location in water distribution networks based on the continuous monitoring of the flow rate at the entry point of the network and the pressure at a number of points within the network is presented. The approach is designed for medium to large bursts with opening times in the order of a few minutes and is sui...

An algorithm for the detection and location of sudden bursts in water distribution networks combining both continuous monitoring of pressure and hydraulic transient computation is presented. The approach is designed for medium and large bursts that are the result of the sudden rupture of the pipe wall or other physical element in the network and ar...

An algorithm for the burst detection and location in water distribution networks based on the continuous monitoring of the flow rate at the entry point of the network and the pressure at a number of points within the network is presented. The approach is designed for medium to large bursts with opening times in the order of a few minutes and is sui...

An algorithm for the detection and location of sudden bursts in water distribution networks combining both continuous monitoring of pressure and hydraulic transient computation is presented. The approach is designed for medium and large bursts that are the result of the sudden rupture of the pipe wall or other physical element in the network and ar...

Sudden pipe breaks occur in water transmission pipelines and distribution mains. The consequences of these breaks can be very expensive because of the service interruption, the cost of repair, and damage to surrounding property and infrastructure. The costs associated with the pipeline breaks can be reduced by minimizing the break detection and loc...

An algorithm for the detection and location of sudden bursts in water distribution networks combining both continuous monitoring of pressure and hydraulic transient computation is presented. The approach is designed for medium and large bursts that are the result of the sudden rupture of the pipe wall or other physical element in the network and ar...

A novel design of a biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) biosensor has been developed for on-line monitoring of easily biodegradable organic compounds in aqueous samples. The biological recognition element of the sensor could be easily renewed by injecting new bacterial paste without disassembling the sensor system. The sensor measurements were carried...

An instrument with integrated flow injection analysis (FIA) system has been developed for on-line monitoring a process for conversion of biomass under field condition. The instrument consists of a newly designed biosensor for easy renewal of the bio-receptor without disassembling the sensor, a FIA controller for controlling the analysis operations,...

An instrument with integrated flow injection analysis (FIA) system has been developed for on-line monitoring a process for conversion of biomass under field condition. The instrument consists of a newly designed biosensor for easy renewal of the bio-receptor without disassembling the sensor, a FIA controller for controlling the analysis operations,...

A new control strategy has been introduced for operating anaerobic digestion processes efficiently at high load. The control system includes a cascade controller embedded into a rule-based supervisory system based on extremum-seeking control. Three process parameters, considered to be the most realistic variables for monitoring of the bioprocess, w...

A computer-controlled biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) analyzer has been developed for fast estimation of biochemical oxygen demand (BODst) automatically with the purpose of on-line monitoring of a process for conversion of biomass under field conditions. The instrument was tested by on-line monitoring of the connecting stream between two stages of...

This paper presents a continuous monitoring approach for detecting and locating bursts in pipe networks using pressure transient theory. Continuous pressure measurements at two locations are analysed. The algorithm is based on the difference between the arrival times of the burst-induced pressure wave at each measurement point and on the measured w...

A reliable and inexpensive device for measuring gas with low flow rates is described. The device works based on the principle of liquid displacement and is able to measure flows from 1 to 950ml·h−1. It also has improved counting logic and data processing capacity to avoid miscounting and provide a friendly interface for data display.

A new control strategy is introduced for operating anaerobic digestion processes efficiently at high load. The control system includes a cascade controller embedded into a rule-based supervisory system based on extremum-seeking control. The control system measures pH and biogas production rate and varies the organic load by manipulating the influen...

The paper presents a novel method for detecting abrupt changes in mixture viscosities. This problem arises in numerous industrial applications and different solutions are suggested in the literature. An approach of using non-linear filtering for detection—an adaptive filter combined with a change detector—is outlined in this paper. As a case study,...

This paper presents a continuous monitoring approach for detecting and locating bursts in pipe networks using pressure transient theory. Continuous pressure measurements at two locations are analysed. The algorithm is based on the difference between the arrival times of the burst-induced pressure wave at each measurement point and on the measured w...

Sudden pipe bursts occur in high-pressure water transmission pipelines and water distribution networks. The consequences of these bursts can be very expensive due to the out-age time while the burst pipe is repaired, the cost of repair, and damage to surrounding property and infrastructure. As a result, it is advantageous to minimise the detection...

In Sweden, extensive research is conducted to find alternative sources of energy that should partly replace the electric power production from nuclear power. With the ambition to create a sustainable system for producing energy, the use of renewable energy is expected to grow further and biofuels are expected to account for a significant part of th...