Paper recycling plant cuts analysis times by 75%

Dublin - A high-speed, high-temperature HT200S laboratory digester from HACH LANGE has helped one of Europe’s largest recycled packaging companies to cut analysis times by 75%. The process has also enabled Smurfit Kappa SSK to optimise the efficiency of the anaerobic digestion to generate quality biogas, which helps to recycle the effluent waste produced on site.

By deploying the advanced HT200S, along with a DR2800 VIS Spectrophotometer at its biogas plant, the analysis of nutrient levels ensure that the site’s anaerobic reactor is running effectively, reducing analysis times by 75% as a result. Prior to analysis in a DR2800, samples are digested in the HT200S, with digestion times for nitrogen, phosphate and chemical oxygen demand (COD), which previously took two hours, now taking just 30 minutes.

Ciaran Conroy, from Smurfit Kappa SSK, explained that the HT200S has radically altered nutrient analysis at the plant. He said: “The HT200S allows us to be more reactive to alterations in the process, as a result of the speed with which we are now able to take measurements. The speed of digestion is complimented by the fact that the HT200S cools the samples so that they can be transferred to the spectrophotometer immediately.

“The easy identification of COD and volatile fatty acids (VFA) in the biogas reactor is just one example of this, enabling us to react in a matter of minutes, resulting in less time spent on maintaining the biogas reactor.”