Flotation sludge challenges
Dissolved air flotation (DAF) is often applied to treat industrial wastewater containing high oil & grease by which TSS removal of 45-70% and oil & grease removal of 50-80% can be achieved without chemicals.
However, fat which is part of the dry matter constituent in the sludge, is often neglected, even though it has high potential as an economically valuable resource such as heating fuel, biofuel, cosmetics, and/or co-substrate for anaerobic digestion.
How can fat be recovered from the wastewater?
Fat can be recovered with Nijhuis AECO-FAT, a total sludge management solution including a dissolved air flotation unit, followed by a disconnector and separation into a liquid fat, a water and a solids fraction. This way an economical value has been added to the recovered product.
With the recovery of fat, the Nijhuis AECO-FAT solution converts flotation sludge into valuable products and saves sludge disposal and chemical costs.
As sludge minimisation is a very important concept in wastewater treatment, we developed several profitable business cases based on the incoming and outgoing requirements, operational costs and capital investment costs.
Why Nijhuis AECO-FAT?
AECO-FAT is a robust, proven technology which amongst others achieves the following benefits:
• Saving sludge disposal costs
• Saving chemical costs due to less chemicals requirement for (existing) physical/chemical treatment of WWTP
• Solids from fat separator can be used as biosolids
• Highly automated system in smart configuration
• Saving fuel costs
• Create value with the produced fat, for example:
– Biofuel
– (Heating) fuel
– Cosmetics
– Co-substrate for anaerobic digestion
• Highest possible centrate quality after fat separation, hence low loading into the existing WWTP
