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Energy efficient sewage plants
August 14, 2009High-rate digestion with microfiltration is state-of-the-art in large sewage plants. It effectively removes accumulated sludge and produces biogas to generate energy. A study now reveals that even small plants can benefit from this process.
Sewage plants remove organic matter from wastewater. If the accumulating sludge decays, biogas is generated as a by-product. However, only 1156 of the 10,200 sewage plants in Germany have a digestion tank. Smaller operations, especially, baulk at the costs of a new digestion tank. Instead, they enrich the sludge with oxygen in the existing activation basin, and stabilize it. "Activation basins require a lot of electricity. At the same time, enormous energy potential is lost, since no biogas is produced," says Dr. Brigitte Kempter-Regel of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart. "A sewage plant eats up more electricity in the municipalities than their hospitals do".
In a cost-benefit-study Dr. Kempter-Regel has shown that it also pays small sewage plants to transfer to more energy-efficient processes - even if they have to invest in a sludge digestion unit. "Based on a sewage plant for 28,000 inhabitants, we calculate that the plant can reduce its annual waste management costs from 225,000 euros by as much as 170,000 euros if sludge is decayed in a high-rate digestion unit with microfiltration, as opposed to treating it aerobically", she says.
This process was developed at IGB and is much more effective than conventional digestion. Instead of the usual 30 to 50 days, sludge only remains in the tower for five to seven days. Around 60 percent of the organic matter is converted into biogas - the spoil is approximately a third more than in the traditional digestion process. The biogas obtained can be used to operate the plant, which, in the case study, would cut energy costs by at least 70,000 euros each year. High-rate digestion has the added advantage of producing less residual sludge needing disposal. "This saves the operator another 100,000 euros", says Kempter-Regel. In addition to high energy prices, budgets are also being hit hard by increasing waste management costs. The use of residual sludge in agriculture is controversial, and slurry can no longer be disposed of on landfills; burning the sludge is a very expensive alternative. So an effective reduction of sludge through digestion pays off. Even small sewage plants have already followed the recommendation of the Stuttgart Institute and converted to the high-rate digestion process.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
This process was developed at IGB and is much more effective than conventional digestion. Instead of the usual 30 to 50 days, sludge only remains in the tower for five to seven days. Around 60 percent of the organic matter is converted into biogas - the spoil is approximately a third more than in the traditional digestion process. The biogas obtained can be used to operate the plant, which, in the case study, would cut energy costs by at least 70,000 euros each year. High-rate digestion has the added advantage of producing less residual sludge needing disposal. "This saves the operator another 100,000 euros", says Kempter-Regel. In addition to high energy prices, budgets are also being hit hard by increasing waste management costs. The use of residual sludge in agriculture is controversial, and slurry can no longer be disposed of on landfills; burning the sludge is a very expensive alternative. So an effective reduction of sludge through digestion pays off. Even small sewage plants have already followed the recommendation of the Stuttgart Institute and converted to the high-rate digestion process.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Nile Delta fishery grows dramatically thanks to run-off of sewage, fertilizers
While many of the world's fisheries are in serious decline, the coastal Mediterranean fishery off the Nile Delta has expanded dramatically since the 1980s.
A biological technique could save up to 2 million euros at sewage treatment plants
A new method for treating the smell of rotten eggs emitted by sewage plants, developed in conjunction by a researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona's Engineering School (ETSE) and a researcher from the University of California, could lead to worldwide savings of two million euros a year. The researchers have discovered a simple method for transforming the chemical odour filters currently installed in treatment plants into equally efficient, but cheaper and less toxic, biological filters. The treatment of sewage causes unpleasant smells due to emissions of such gasses as hydrogen sulfide (H2S), along with other compounds such as sulfur compounds, amines and carboxylic acids.
More biogas, less sludge
Germany has more than 10,000 sewage plants, using costly processes to treat household, industrial and restaurant waste water. The treated water is discharged back into river and lake systems. What remains is an organic / inorganic mixture of sludge. The issue is how to dispose of this residue. Up to now, sewage sludge has been used as an agricultural fertilizer, burned to produce energy or dumped on landfill sites. However, legislation prohibiting the use of landfill sites for the disposal of organic waste is to be introduced in Germany in 2005. The Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Sintered Materials IKTS, working with the Ingenieurgesellschaft für Wasser und Entsorgung
New Research Turns Sewage Farms into Power Plants
Researchers at the University of Warwick's Warwick Process Technology Group have devised a process that turns wet waste from sewage farms and paper mills into a source of power. University of Warwick researcher Dr Ashok Bhattacharya and his team are part of a Europe wide consortium that have cracked the problem of how to extract very pure levels of hydrogen from wet bio-matter, such as sewage or paper mill waste. This very pure hydrogen can then be used in "fuel cells" to power homes, factories and cars. The research consortium have now received £2.5million in European funding to work up their lab based solution into larger prototypes. Eventually the research team's "plate
Cost-saving waste water filtration
Nobody likes to find coffee grounds in their morning "brew", which is why coffee percolators are so popular. But the last drops emerge slowly from the meanwhile compacted coffee in the filter, causing the waiting sleepyhead to lose patience! The operators of sewage plants experience a similar situation to separate solids out of their brown "brew". But they have the technical means to accelerate the process. The waste water passes horizontally over the filter, so that the sludge deposited on the filter can only reach a certain depth – any further solids are swept away by the current. From time to time the filter has to be cleaned. This system has a drawback: The pressure causing the liq
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