MONITORING BIOSLUDGE CHARACTERISTICS
IN A PULP MILL EFFLUENT TREATMENT PLANT
WITH COMPUTER VISION
Authors: Heikki Hannukainen1, Sakari Toivakainen1, Mark Piispanen1
1 Toihan Oy. Finland
O PAPEL vol. 84, N.o 1, pp. 62- 65 – JAN 2023
ABSTRACT
Biosludge characteristics from a pulp mill activated sludge
process were studied with computer vision for a period of 11
months. Work included computer vision model training, collecting
microscope images of biosludge and image analyses. Image
analyses demonstrated that changes in biosludge characteristics
can be detected and closely monitored with computer vision. For
example, the proportion of filamentous bacteria in the biosludge
area varied between 1 and 10%. Also, average floc size increase
and floc density improvement during the evaluation period were
well observed.
Keywords: Wastewater treatment optimization, Biosludge,
Computer vision
