Industrial Utility Efficiency

Wastewater

Choosing the Best Wastewater Mixing System - How Compressed Gas Mixing Overcomes Daunting Challenges

By Sarah Elger, P.E., Director of Strategy and Marketing and John Koch, P.E., Vice President of Technology, EnviroMix Inc.

When selecting a mixing technology, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and their consultant engineers must consider numerous factors, balancing specific treatment demands with plant priorities and ultimately choosing the technology that best suits their needs and specifications. Compressed gas mixing (CGM) is often the best solution, allowing designers to circumvent many challenges that alternative technologies either create or cannot overcome. 

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Magnetic Bearings: An Attractive Force for Energy-efficiency

By Mark Hinckley, Director Strategic Projects, SKF Strategic Industries

With sustainability and energy-efficiency targets tougher than ever, magnetic bearings are drawing the attention of engineers in many industries, offering a whole range of advantages from increased performance to extended lifespan.
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Advanced Automation Lowers Labor Cost and Improves Performance at the Las Palmas, California, Waste Water Treatment Plant

By Nate Ventress, Process Automation Specialist, Western Region, Festo

Recently the capacity of the Las Palmas, California, waste water treatment operations were expanded by combining two plants and making one centralized filtration center. The new center expanded the flow capacity from 162,000 Gallons per Day (GPD) combined to 288,000 GPD when the manually controlled reclaimed water operations were updated to a state-of-the-art automated system. Reclaimed water from the plant irrigates local community green spaces. The new automated system ensures lower labor costs, consistent quality, and peak efficiency in the process of reclaiming waste water for irrigation.
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Q&A: APG-Neuros and Turbo Blower Technology

By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine interviewed Mr. Omar Hammoud, the CEO and President of APG-Neuros. APG-Neuros was founded in 2006 in Quebec as a result of seeing an opportunity for innovation in the North American blower market. Our mission is to distribute, manufacture, provide aftermarket support and continued development of high-efficiency turbo blowers and complete Aeration Systems for the municipal and industrial markets in North America and Europe.
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Evaluating Different Blower Technologies on a Wire-to-Air Basis

By Andrew Balberg, Business Development Manager–Low Pressure, Atlas Copco

In the absence of official third party specifications on energy efficiency, it is difficult to evaluate and compare blower technologies fairly and effectively. The lack of readily available evaluation tools leads to misinformation and unfair comparisons between technologies. Further, the performance verification process is difficult to prove.
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DO Control System and Turbo Blowers Optimize Energy Use at a WWTF

By Jack Troidl, P.E., Woodard & Curran

Every municipality and utility is facing the reality of rising energy costs. In 2010, the Town of Billerica, MA, which is located 22 miles northwest of Boston with a population of just under 40,000 residents, engaged Process Energy Services and Woodard & Curran to conduct an energy evaluation of the Town’s Wastewater Treatment Facility (WWTF) and pump station systems sponsored by National Grid. The objective of the evaluation was to provide an overview of each facility system to determine how electrical energy and natural gas were being used at the facility and to identify and develop potential costsaving projects.
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Screw Blowers and Membrane Bioreactor Treat Wastewater at a Bottling Plant

By Richard Stukey

The right ingredients and processes are essential for manufacturing flavorful beverages that contribute to the company’s bottom line. But what happens to all those other “ingredients” that aren’t part of the recipe? Cleaning up those unwanted ingredients from bottling plant wastewater can consume large amounts energy, time and money—and become a distraction from the company’s primary goal of manufacturing beverages.
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Improved Aeration Efficiency through Design and Control

By Matthew Gray, Senior Process Engineer and Steve Kestel, Lead Systems Engineer, BioChem Technology, Inc.

With the recent and future increases of the cost of energy, operating a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) as efficiently as possible has become one of the most important factors that operators and managers are facing today. The implementation of a properly designed aeration control system has been reported by the United Sates Environmental Protection Agency to reduce aeration energy by 25 to 40 percent.
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Aeration Energy Offers Opportunities to Save

By Jess Burgess, Consortium for Energy Efficiency

Aeration systems at wastewater treatment facilities present significant, cost-effective energy savings opportunities. Aeration—the introduction of air into the wastewater stream to support anaerobic bacteria and mixing—is a key function at the majority of wastewater treatment facilities in North America. Aeration accounts for 25-60 percent of total energy consumption at wastewater treatment facilities , and a significant piece of operating budgets sector-wide.
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O₂ Automation: The Future of Bubble Mixing?

Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine interviewed Kris Drewry from O₂ Automation and Pulsed Hydraulics Inc.

We have industrial accounts where we mix chemicals and acids. Our favorite is blending wine and spirits using compressed nitrogen. The old way to blend was to use “air rousing.” This was done by installing rows of perforated pipes in the bottom of the tank and attaching an air pipe to this grid. Since the typical mixing cycle was 45 minutes, copious amounts of air and energy were used.
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