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Wastewater treatment for sugar producer in Croatia

H+E, one of the leading international providers of industrial process and wastewater treatment recently supplied a complete wastewater treatment for a sugar producer in Croatia.

We have designed and built more than 40 treatment systems for sugar production worldwide. This includes plants in Lithuania, Egypt and Chile.

H+E therefore has a huge amount of experience with the rather unusual requirements of this type of wastewater.

The sugar industry uses flume water circuits for the cleaning of the delivered sugar beet. Many companies add lime to the water, the so-called “alkaline” mode of operation. This reduces odour pollution, improves the settleability of the washed-off soil and reduces corrosion in the pipelines, thereby also minimising maintenance costs.

But using lime also results in wastewaters with high calcium content and a strong tendency to precipitate lime-containing solids. These precipitates lead to extensive operational problems in anaerobic wastewater treatment. They also clog the membrane aerators in aerobic wastewater treatment. This considerably reduces the capacity of the treatment plant.

H+E’s Custom-Designed Solutions

H+E solutions to these problems were specifically developed to deal with the issues resulting from the use of lime in sugar industry wastewater. These technological innovations include ANAFIT®.CS, one of the water treatment solutions from our ANAFIT® product range. Based on the anaerobic contact sludge process, ANAFIT®.CS is a reliable, proven and effective process for the treatment of the calcium-rich, organically highly loaded wastewaters from the sugar industry.

H+E also offers other process technologies for wastewater from the sugar industry: For example, the BIOFIT®.N treatment for nitrification/denitrification in an aerobic stage. Here, we use H+E’s own specially developed aerators. Even at high calcium concentrations, they reliably supply oxygen for years without requiring any maintenance.

In Croatia, industrial companies have faced stricter quality requirements in recent years following accession to the EU. Due to this, the client decided to invest in a new treatment plant including anaerobic and an aerobic stages. We arranged a visit to a nearby reference plant. This helped to convince the customer of our experience and expertise.

Subsequently, the International Sugar Journal published an article about this project. You can download that article here.

Scandinavian Aerobic Treatment System
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Sugar Wastewater Treatment Plant in Scandinavia

Replacement of Existing Treatment Plant

H+E refurbished an existing Sugar Wastewater Treatment Plant in Scandinavia.

H+E is one of the leading international providers of industrial process and wastewater treatment solutions,

The existing wastewater ponds had the disadvantage of both consuming large amounts of energy and also not meeting the necessary treated wastewater quality requirements. Therefore, the client decided to replace the essentially redundant equipment with up-to-date technology.

H+E’s Expertise

Sugar Wastewater Treatment is not straightforward. However H+E has extensive experience in this market. It has been a leading provider of wastewater treatment systems for the companies throughout the sugar industry for many years. We developed our unique technology and energy-efficient solutions to meet the specific demands of the sugar industry. This was the main factor in the Client’s decision to choose H+E.

Our aerobic BIOFIT®.N process uses combined denitrification and nitrification stages to safely and efficiently remove nitrogen. This compact solution has been proved many times in the sugar industry to be a reliable and highly efficient method for treating wastewater. It uses a particular type of fine bubble membrane aeration of the activated sludge basin. This results in a substantial reduction of energy consumption, and therefore leads to a rapid return on investment for the client. Integrating it with the existing equipment reduces total investment costs. BIOFIT®.N is one of a family of BIOFIT processes.

The aerobic BIOFIT®.N system started operation right on schedule for the 2017/2018 campaign.

H+E has also developed the two-stage ANAFIT-CS system. This particularly suits wastewater with a high calcium concentration, usually found in the sugar industry. It avoids operational problems which are often caused by calcium carbonate clogging, commonly seen in other treatment processes. As a result, ANAFIT-CS systems operate reliably and dependably.

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Wastewater Treatment for new Waste-to-Energy Plant

H+E has supplied a Wastewater Treatment Plant for a new highly efficient Waste-to-Energy Plant. This plant uses Refuse-Derived-Fuel (RDF) to produce electricity. At the same time it minimises overall CO2 emissions to atmosphere. H+E’s plant pre-assembled and tested the plant before delivery to site.

Pre-assembly showing pH adjustment stage on the left and SecureChem™ IBC level control on the right

 SecureChem™ IBC level control Cabinet

The Problem

This type of plant produces wastewater from a number of different sources. It is carefully treated so that it can be safely discharged to foul sewer. Even then, the discharge must be constantly monitored to ensure that its quality is within the prescribed limits. The wastewater can contain very variable concentrations of both suspended solids and chemicals.

The Solution

Two settlement stages operated in parallel remove solids accumulated from a number of sources. This gives the plant maximum flexibility and ensures that it is always available to treat the wastewater.  Chemical treatment is required because the incoming wastewater quality varies significantly. H+E’s SecureChem™ system does this completely automatically. 1m3 Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBC’s) supply the chemicals directly to the treatment system. SecureChem™ connects two IBCs in duty / standby mode.

SecureChem™ systems ensure that the chemical from each IBC is completely consumed. Only then does the system switch automatically to the standby IBC. Therefore, the only operator involvement is to change the empty IBC for a new, full one from time to time. This therefore avoids most of the risks associated with chemical handling.

The plant monitors the treated wastewater’s pH, temperature and flow rate before discharging to foul sewer.

Pre-assembly

Following completion of the design phase we both manufactured and pre-assembled the system in our factory. This enabled our client to also attend and witness the testing. It also enabled us to ensure that functioned as required immediately on start-up. Equipment installation was very quick following delivery to site. Each  client can therefore benefit significantly from this!

After completing installation we commissioned the system and trained the client’s staff . We also offer to provide long-term service and support for the lifetime of the plant as standard. Typically, lifetime will exceed 25 years for this type of plant.

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New £1 million Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant

The H+E supplied a Treatment Plant to handle wastewater containing a mixture of highly concentrated acids. This included Hydrofluoric and Nitric acids, and also contains a range of soluble metals.

Aerospace sector demands high quality Wastewater Treatmant plants

General Plant view

Overall plant design and manufacture was to an unusually high standard because of  the particularly highly-sensitive application.  The target minimum design life was 40 years. It also included the supply of documentation to a very high standard.

The Solution

This involved neutralising the wastewater with calcium hydroxide to precipitate the fluoride as calcium fluoride. Neutralisation is done in two separate steps simply because the pH of the incoming wastewater  is less than 1. Flocculation of the solids produced is the next step to allow their efficient separation from the wastewater in one of our Tube Settlers. This highly efficient lamella clarifier design is a standard product.  Literally hundreds of plants benefit from their installation.

Following settlement, the clarified wastewater flows into a TOVEKO continuous gravity sand filter. This removes any final traces of fine solids. Sometimes the wastewater is too warm to discharge directly to sewer. It is therefore cooled when necessary. On-line instruments continuously monitor the quality of the treated wastewater. It then mixes with various other non-toxic wastewater streams and discharges to foul sewer. The plant also monitors the quality of the final, mixed wastewater stream before discharge to foul sewer.

Small chemical dosing systems in use

Chemical Dosing Tanks

The sludge formed by the settling solids transfers automatically to a separate sludge holding tank. The sludge settles further in the quiescent conditions. A decanting system automatically removes excess water and recirculates it back into the plant for final treatment. A filter press then dewaters the thickened sludge. The solid “cake” produced  is taken off-site for disposal.

We included an unusually sophisticated plant control system. It features a far greater degree and depth of continuous control and monitoring than is normal for this type of wastewater in a more “standard” industrial environment.

Pre-assembly

We both manufactured and pre-assembled the plant to a very high level. We then  inspected and Factory Tested it thoroughly before delivering it to site.

Pre-assembly has been an integral part of our culture for a substantial time now, mainly because it enables us to control the quality of what we deliver and also because testing in our factories is so much more efficient than doing so on site.

Chemical treatment tanks installed and operational

Chemical Treatment Stages

You can find further information about H+E’s Tube Settlers and TOVEKO filters in the Downloads section.

Pre Assembled Plant
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Process Water System for Pembroke Power Station

The RWE npower power station at Pembroke in South Wales  generates up to 2,160MW. This therefore makes it the largest combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant in the UK. H+E has completed a number of previous contracts with both RWE and the main contractor. We were therefore chosen to design and supply the process water system to feed the gas turbines.

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