Chlorine Injection Optimization under Disinfectant By-Product Constraints

Optimize chlorine injection schedules at booster stations in drinking water distribution networks such that required disinfectant residuals are maintained while guaranteeing that the formation of disinfectant by-products (DBPs) remains below regulatory standard thresholds, thereby mitigating potential health risks.

Background

The paper develops a quality-aware hydraulic control framework that incorporates controllability metrics of water quality dynamics into pump scheduling. While the study focuses on disinfectant (chlorine) regulation and control performance, it explicitly excludes health risk considerations associated with disinfectant by-products (DBPs).

In the limitations and future work, the authors note this omission and specify a concrete follow-up problem: to design chlorine dosing optimization that simultaneously accounts for DBP formation constraints, ensuring compliance with standard limits. This extends the current control framework to include additional chemical formation dynamics and regulatory requirements.

References

Moreover, the chlorine control problem addressed in this paper does not account for the health risks associated with the formation of disinfectant by-products. To that end, we leave this problem for future work. This entails optimizing chlorine injections while ensuring that the formation of disinfectant by-products remains below standard levels, thereby mitigating potential health risks.

— Quality-Aware Hydraulic Control in Drinking Water Networks via Controllability Proxies  (2401.12214 - Elsherif et al., 2024) in Section 7: Summary, Limitations, and Future Work