Advanced monitoring platform for industrial wastewater treatment: Multivariable approach using the self-organizing map

• A multivariable monitoring system based on self-organizing maps is presented.
• The system can monitor the current state of wastewater treatment and its discharges.
• The case is an activated sludge process, which is part of a pulp and paper plant.
• The system can also alert if the preset limits defined for discharges are exceeded.

Treatment of industrial wastewaters is currently confronting important challenges concerning both cost management of treatment plants and fulfillment of tightening environmental regulations. Online monitoring of wastewater treatment is critical, because changes in the performance of treatment can lead to various problems such as decreased efficiency of purification, decreased energy efficiency, or ineffective use of chemicals. Moreover, changes in the operation of a treatment process can inflict changes that have unforeseen consequences, including an increased amount of harmful effluents, and therefore it is essential for a monitoring system to be able to adapt to various process conditions. It seems, however, that the monitoring systems used currently by the industry are lacking this functionality and are therefore only partially able to meet the needs of modern industry. In addition, there is typically a large amount of measurement data available in the industry, for which advanced data processing and computational tools are needed for monitoring, analysis, and control. For this reason, it would be useful to have a monitoring system which could be able to handle a large amount of measurement data and present the essential information on the state and evolution of the process in a simple, user-friendly and flexible manner. In this paper, we introduce an adaptive multivariable approach based on self-organizing maps (SOM) which can be utilized for advanced monitoring of industrial processes. The system developed can provide a new kind of tool for illustrating the condition and evolution of an industrial wastewater treatment process. The operation of the system is demonstrated using process measurements from an activated sludge treatment plant, which is a part of a pulp and paper plant.