Hazen Research Paper Selected as WEF 2024 Award Winner

(RALEIGH, NC – September 13, 2024) -- A paper co-authored by six Hazen experts has been selected to receive the prestigious Gascoigne Wastewater Treatment Plant Operational Improvement Medal at WEFTEC 2024, the preeminent wastewater conference in the nation.

The paper, titled Continuous-flow densification helps facilities unlock treatment capacity — and substantial cost savings, describes the authors’ efforts to achieve and maintain full-scale densification at the Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources Crooked Creek Water Reclamation Facility (CCWRF; Norcross, Georgia). The effects of densification on CCWRF’s treatment capacity — and its bottom line — may provide insights to owners and operators into how densified activated sludge (DAS) systems can benefit other facilities.

Drawing from both the CCWRF and ongoing work elsewhere, this paper outlines how DAS technology can improve sludge settleability while allowing for increasing capacity ratings of existing infrastructure. As utilities seek to intensify biological nutrient removal, leveraging technologies such as DAS can allow for achieving energy-efficient simultaneous nitrification, denitrification, and phosphorus removal within compact footprints.

WEF published research awards recognize exciting advancements in water knowledge and practice. The authors include Hazen’s Ron Latimer, Alonso Griborio, Paul Pitt, Wendell Khunjar, Gayathri Ram Mohan, Haley Noteboom, and Yewei Sun, along with David Jones and Melissa Meyer from the Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources. The full text of the paper is available to WEF members on the Water Environment & Technology (WET) website.