The treatment plant laboratory performs various tests in order to monitor and control treatment processes.
- The laboratory prepares reports summarizing the results of the analyses and provides data to both internal and external parties.
- The laboratory is certified by the Israel Laboratory Accreditation Authority in accordance with the ISO 17025 standard.
- The plant’s laboratory performs a wide variety of chemical and biological tests and routinely monitors the wastewater treatment process.
- For this purpose, tests on specimens are regularly taken during all stages of the treatment process, some of which are composite samples and some which are grab samples.
- Parameters routinely tested in liquids and in sludge are suspended and total solids, settled solids, volume of settled sludge, pH, chlorides, electrical conductivity, biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, nitrogen compounds, phosphorus compounds, sulfur, acidity and alkalinity and volatile organic compounds.
- The laboratory also performs chemical and biological tests required at various pilot installations that are occasionally set up at the plant to test new processes.
- The laboratory is equipped with sophisticated measurement and analysis instruments and has a system for bacteriologic testing of the activated sludge population using a microscope. Analysis of the results of the observation of this population contributes to reaching correct operational conclusions.
Microbe population in activated sludge as seen in a microscope
Photograph: Dr. Vera Pruzinsky