Establishing a Smart Farm-Scale Piggery Wastewater Treatment System with the Internet of Things (IoT) Applications

The conventional piggery wastewater treatment system is mainly a manual operation system which may be well managed by experienced technicians. However, the pig farmers must simultaneously manage their pig production as well as their on-farm wastewater treatment facility. For this study, Internet of Things (IoT) applications were introduced on a 1000-pig farm to establish a smart piggery wastewater treatment system, which was upgraded from a self-developed fully automatic wastewater treatment system. Results showed that the removal efficiency of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and suspended solids (SS) of the piggery wastewater based on the sensor data before and after water quality sensor calibration were 89%, 94%, and 93%, and 94%, 86%, and 96%, respectively. Moreover, the removal efficiency of BOD, COD, and SS of the piggery wastewater based on the analytical chemical data before and after water quality sensor calibration were 93%, 89%, and 97%, and 94%, 86%, and 96%, respectively. Experimental results showed that overall removal efficiency of BOD, COD, and SS of the piggery wastewater after water quality sensor calibration were 94%, 86–87%, and 96%, respectively. Results revealed that the farm-scale smart piggery wastewater treatment system was feasible to be applied and extended to more commercial pig farms for establishing sustainable pig farming.