Initial studies on the use of high-performance liquid chromatography for the rapid assessment of sewage treatment efficiency

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques suitable for the rapid analysis of some dissolved organic constituents (uric acid, creatine, creatinine, amino acids etc.) of sewage are presented. The techniques are applied to full scale field trial assessment of the degradation potentials of an activated sludge and a biological filter sewage works. The results obtained for the fate of specific polar low-molecular weight constituents are compared with concurrently obtained dissolved and total BOD₅, COD, ammonium and total oxidised nitrogen data. The data suggests that HPLC techniques may offer an alternative to BOD₅, COD analyses and give an insight into the fundamental removal processes occurring during primary and secondary sewage treatment.