Mitsubishi Electric Develops AI-based Aeration Control Technology for Biological Wastewater Treatment

Will realize highly energy-efficient wastewater treatment

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO:6503) announced today that it has developed aeration control technology to reduce the electric power consumption for supplying air (aeration) to biological reactors¹ which is essential for biological wastewater treatment. By leveraging the company’s Maisart^®2 artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies, the system accurately predicts the quality (ammonia concentration) of the water flowing into the reactor over the following few hours.

The control of aeration levels at individual section of the reactor will achieve approximately 10 %³ reduction in the total amount of aeration, compared to the conventional methods. This will lead to a reduction in the power consumption of biological wastewater treatment plants, which consume about 7 billion kWh of electricity annually, equivalent to about 0.7% of total electric power consumption in Japan.

The company is currently verifying the stability and effectiveness of this technology with the cooperation of domestic wastewater treatment plants, and is aiming to commercialize operation control systems using the new technology within fiscal year ending in March 2021.

^1	In general wastewater treatment, oxidation treatment using microorganisms is carried out to remove ammonia and organic matters.
^2	Mitsubishi Electric's AI creates the State-of-the-ART in technology.
^3	Based on the results of simulations using actual wastewater treatment data.

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