Control and monitoring platform for the struvite precipitation plant at EDAR Guadalete
Company
EDAR Guadalete operates wastewater treatment facilities and develops innovation projects aimed at resource recovery. In its experimental plant, the organization needed to control the struvite precipitation process for phosphorus reduction.
The objective was to implement a complete control, visualization, and monitoring system that would allow the pilot plant to operate safely, stably, and with full traceability.
Challenge
Design and integrate a supervision and control system capable of managing:
- Five pumps
- Four tanks
- Two agitators
- Level, pH, and status sensors
- Manual and automatic operating modes (day/night)
The solution had to orchestrate the entire chemical process: from water inlet to settling, recirculation, reagent dosing, pH regulation, and solids discharge, while meeting strict safety and operational control requirements.
Problem
- Lack of centralized control: There was no unified platform to manage pumps, sensors, agitators, solenoid valves, and setpoints.
- Complex manual operation without safety guarantees: Operators had to supervise each piece of equipment individually, increasing the risk of errors and downtime.
- No continuous monitoring: pH, levels, status signals, and temperatures were not integrated, making it difficult to analyze the struvite reaction process.
- Unregulated operating modes: Day and night operating regimes required different logic that could not be programmed or automated.
- High operator dependency: Without automatic safety rules (hysteresis, interlocks, pH ranges, delay timers), plant operation was less stable.
Solution
How we do it?
A complete control, automation, and visualization platform was developed and integrated to manage the entire pilot plant infrastructure in real time.
- Comprehensive plant monitoring and control: Dedicated dashboards display levels, statuses, temperatures, pH values, setpoints, and the activity of every pump, tank, agitator, and sensor.
- Full pump automation: Specific control rules were implemented for each pump, including level conditions, hysteresis, thermal protection, pH range control, and programmable delays.
- Advanced chemical reaction management: The system automates reagent dosing (magnesium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide), maintaining pH within the configured parameter range.
- Operational safety: The platform prevents hazardous conditions such as dry-running pumps, recirculation without valid temperature readings, insufficient tank levels, or incorrect pump activation.
- Advanced process visualization: All states, alarms, trends, and cycles are recorded and clearly displayed for analysis and traceability.
Results
- Full automation of the struvite precipitation pilot plant
- Intelligent control of pumps, reagents, pH, and settling processes
- Real-time monitoring of sensors, levels, and system states
- Improved operational safety through automatic rules and protections
- Stable operation in manual, daytime automatic, and nighttime automatic modes
- Complete traceability of the chemical process and asset performance