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ANAEROBIC wastewater digestion technologies not only enable an industry to clean up the wastewater it discharges to the environment, but also to break free from the cost and pollution of fossil fuels. For industries using them, the treatment systems provide reliable and predictable supplies of base load energies.
The greatest advantage of anaerobic wastewater treatment is the controlled, continuous production of valuable biogas (methane) that occurs during treatment.Rather than polluting the atmosphere, this CH4 is fed back into industrial processes to be burned for heating and boilers.
Surplus gas collected can be fed to localised electricity generators that provide either on-site energy or direct it back into local grids to earn electricity and carbon credits. Up-to-date technologies, such as Global Water Engineering’s Raptor?, can convert almost any organic residue into biogas.
Because they are efficient, anaerobic digestion facilities have been recognized by the United Nations Development Programme as one of the most useful decentralised sources of energy supply, as they are less capital-intensive than large power plants. They can also benefit local communities by providing energy supplies and eliminate the need for large and often smelly and environmentally challenging settling lagoons.
With increased focus on climate change mitigation, the re-use of waste as a resource and new technological approaches which have lowered capital costs, anaerobic digestion has in recent years received increased attention amongst governments, particularly those of emerging regions where infrastructure investment is high.
Modern anaerobic processes concentrate the process in environmentally harmonious closed reactors, operated under ideal temperature and process control to optimize waste consumption and, in the process, generate large quantities of methane from the organic materials in the wastewater. The quantities of methane produced can diminish or even completely replace the use of fossil fuels in the production process: one ton of COD (chemical oxygen demand) digested anaerobically generates 350nM3of methane, equivalent to approximately 312 litres of fuel oil, or generates about 1,300 kWh of green electricity.
Any factory with a biological waste stream or wastewater with high COD can easily use this technology to generate energy. Some companies making the investment have achieved payback within a year. Most typically achieve it within two years, says CEO Jean Pierre Ombregt. GWE has been involved in more than 300 water and wastewater projects around the globe.