Water companies tap Veolia
28 Nov 2012
London – Three water companies have adopted moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) technology from Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies for their wastewater treatment operations, the supplier has reported.
MBBR technology was developed by Veolia subsidiary AnoxKaldnes in the late 1980’s and is now widely used for both municipal and industrial applications which require high quality effluent together with a small footprint. Based on fixed-film technology, the process employs a special suspended carrier media.
Recently Veolia has introduced new ANOX-K5 media. With a protected specific surface area of 800 m2/m3, the shape and dimensions of this is said to offer benefits for both new and upgraded wastewater treatment (WWT) plants.
At Anglian Water’s Corby WWT works, the circular concrete MBBR unit will be used to increase the capacity of the plant where it will treat a combination of domestic wastewater and industrial effluent.
The MBBR process provides the ability to cope with fluctuating industrial loads, whilst producing a consistently high quality final effluent, Veolia pointed out.
A new MBBR is also being installed by Yorkshire Water at Cudworth WWT works near Barnsley for tertiary nitrification. Here the media will be in a multi-celled rectangular concrete unit and will be followed by Veolia’s Hydrotech Discfilter to ensure that the tight BOD discharge consent is achieved.
As part of D?r Cymru’s multi-million upgrade at Swansea Bay sewage treatment works - MBBR technology from Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has been selected as the optimum solution where additional capacity is needed to accommodate a rising population, whilst meeting tighter discharge consent to protect the waters of Swansea Bay.
Converting the existing AS plant to MBBR technology utilising the new ANOX-K5 media was the ‘best value’ solution due to the limited space available for the required capacity increase.
The system enables the capacity of the plant to be increased and provides an improved effluent discharge quality without the need for additional civil structures on a site with limited space. Veolia worked closely with Imtech and D?r Cymru personnel to develop the MBBR solution.
