ENERGY AUTARQUIC WASTE WATER
TREATMENT PLANTS - NO LONGER A DREAM
Soon, all waste water treatment plants will be built this way. Autarkic. Energy self-sufficient.
Environmentally friendly. People friendly. Psychologically friendly.
A mere two decades ago, we frowned when the statements were made that one day we shall all have mobile phones. Could the predictor have imagined smart phones?
Technology advancement and enhancement are not limited to the IT industry alone.
Today, we have available the ingredients for the Smart Waste Water Treatment Plant.
From smelly and ugly to odorless and practically botanical! Is that not smart? No, we do not think so. That is only not smelly and it is beautiful. Just like Dolly, beautiful, but not necessarily smart!
But let us investigate further. For medium sized to large capacity plants (3 MLD to 100 MLD) the capital investment for our Food Chain Reactor Technology is lower than for conventional plants. The treated water quality is at least as good as a well-operated conventional plant, mostly better. The energy consumption can be reduced by up to 30% or more of that of a conventional plant, and so the operating cost. The waste sludge production is reduced by 20 to 35%. The plant is significantly more robust against shocks and power outages. The risk of untreated water being discharged from the plant is reduced by orders of magnitude.
Now that is what we call Smart!
But that is not all…
After water treatment comes sludge treatment. And they sort of did the right thing in the previous century. Converting a portion of the high amounts of sludge to bio-gas, and sometimes, in turn, to electrical energy. They unfortunately did not do it well. How do we do it better? Well, we have done one smart thing already, we reduced the amount of sludge produced. Guess what happens to the size of the new Anaerobic Digests? Correct, reduction in size by about 30%.
But as Blue Eyes sang “More, much more than this…” we increase the conversion of sludge to energy by about 20% - this means from the same amount of sludge, we produce 20% more bio-gas, and 20% less residual sludge! And the bio-gas has a slightly higher fraction of methane! This result is achieved by adding our smart Ultrasound Cavitation technology.
And we achieve this again by reducing capital cost AND reducing operating cost. We call that Very Smart.
So let us look at the sludge equation now. In a conventional plant, you may produce say 50 t/d of sludge from waste water treatment. You reduce this to about 25 t/d after Anaerobic Digestion. In our smart plant, from the same amount of water, we produce 35 t/d in water treatment. Because of our higher conversion in the AD, we now remain with 14 t/d of digested sludge (up to 44% reduction).
But that is not all…
“I did it my way…” Previous century technology was mostly limited to land spreading of the sludge, with the associated health risks. Pathogens could find its way into our food, into our water.
As demonstrated above, we have much less sludge remaining after AD than the conventional plant,
but we still have sludge, nonetheless. We could incinerate it, yes, but that is not really
environmentally friendly and it consumes energy. So, instead of wasting our hard-earned energy and just burn it away, we would rather do the Super Smart thing and feed this sludge to our Super Critical Water Oxidation (SCWO) technology.
We combust all the hydrocarbons to high purity carbon dioxide. This combustion reaction is highly exothermic, and we capture this thermal energy for beneficial use. Alternatively, we convert this energy to more electricity with a steam turbine.
So now, Prodromos Technologies has brought to you the Smart WWTP concept. And you can select between being autarkic, autarkic plus or super autarkic, by mixing and matching our offerings, just the way you have to choose between different smart phones.
Do you want more…
We now have an energy neutral plant, but what about the water? Is it really safe to be released into the environment? The water needs disinfection to ensure no pathogens are released to the environment. Conventionally, chlorine gas was added to kill the bacteria. Not a good plan, because of the inherent dangers of working with chlorine and also the formation of cancer causing Trihalomethanes (THM) downstream! Ozonation and Ultraviolet disinfection overcame the concerns of chlorination, but at high power (which we are trying to save) and maintenance cost
Now this is where we became super smart! No chemicals, no power, no maintenance! Our Frontier Disinfection systems make use of Activated Ceramics, which provides an auto-catalytic high positive charge that rips electrons from micro-organisms instantaneously upon contact.
Not only does it provide log 5 up to log 10 kill efficiency, it also removes nutrients (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate).
This technology is also effective in drinking water Treatment.
Activated Ceramics Disinfection
Activated Ceramics Disinfection Decontaminating the water with no added chemicals, no energy consumption and without any regular intervention, the Frontier systems differ significantly from all other disinfection techniques. The product functions due to the Activated Silica/or/Activated Alumina ceramics placed into the disinfection chambers. Any micro-organisms into direct contact with our powerful germicidal ceramics is removed in less than 0.1 second.
This is achieved throughactron transfer method, which occurs on the surface of the disinfection media, and instantly ruptures the pathogen on a molecular level.
We have available in-pipe systems for smaller applications and gravity systems for larger applications
Features
- Revolutionary method of sanitation
- Tested and certified to a LOG 6 reduction for bacteria (99.9999%) by the EPA
- Easy retrofitting into existing chlorine disinfection chambers
- One year warrant
Benefits
- Chemical free, no chlorine
- Power free, no energy consumption
- Maintenance free
- No risk of failure, no electrical device
- No heating of the water
- 30 Micron filtration
- 99.99% Removal of microorganisms by the Activated Silica™ ceramics
- 50% Removal of Nitrates
- 50% Removal of Ammonia
- 40% Removal of Phosphates
- Scalable to any flow > 800 GPM (multiplication of the units)
- Green technology - Low Life Cycle Cost
Applications:
‐ wastewater,
‐ drinking water,
‐ grey-water,
‐ cooling oils,
‐ pharmaceutical waste,
‐ air condensation,
‐ ballast water and
‐ hospital waste.
Cavitating to Increased Biogas Revenue
Benefits of Ultrasound
- Increase biogas production (up to 20%)
- Increase methane content (1-2%)
- Reduce residual sludge (15-20%)
- Intensify anaerobic digestion process
- Improve volatile solids degradation
- Reduce digestate viscosity (25%)
- Improve sludge dewaterability
– less polymer use
- Increase profitability
Effects on Bacteria & Biomass:
- First decomposes agglomerations at low energy
- Further sonification causes cell lysis (breaks cell walls)
- Cell content escapes and dissolves
- Easily available for degradation
- Releases enzymes from cells (destroyed where heating processes used)
- Stimulates microbial activity
- Better digester performance
- Increased biogas production
Principles of Ultrasound:
• 20 kHz to MHz range
• Between 20 – 40 kHz typically achieves cavitation
• Local pressure falls below evaporation pressure
• Explosive formation of small bubbles (cavitation)
• Localised high pressure gradient
• Localised extreme temperature increase
• Results in strong mechanical shear forces
• Destroys robust surfaces
Typical Ultrasound Unit:
• Plug flow system
• Five Oscillating units
• Modular expanded
• 1 kW per probe
• Frequency 20 kHz
• Intensity 25 – 50 W/cm2
Please contact us with any questions and our team will find a solution for your needs.