Plant Services large circulation of 150,000 subscribers can now learn all about how Anue Water Technologies eco-friendly commercial odor control technology has benefited a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Brazil. FEMSA Coca-Cola Plant Maintenance Supervisor, Thiago Bassoli, and wastewater treatment company, Anue Water Technologies’ Vice President and General Manager, Greg Bock, were interviewed about the project. Here’s an excerpt from the article.
Commercial Odor Control Technology
After a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Brazil struggled to control odor problems at its wastewater facility with a gas scrubber system, it needed a new solution. The search for low-cost sustainable systems to control odors led the plant to a geomembrane technology with embedded odor control carbon filters. The Engineered Odor Control System Series is manufactured by a company in Canada and sold exclusively in North America by ANUE Water Technologies.
Many companies make geomembrane fabrics that are rubber-based and very strong. The “secret sauce” of wastewater treatment company, Anue Water Technologies’ commercial odor control system “is cutting holes into the geomembrane and putting pockets for the carbon impregnated filters,” says Greg Bock, vice president and general manager of Anue Water Technologies. This filter technology is patented as of January 2021.
Inserting Geomembrane Technology
The Coca-Cola plant in Brazil is using the geomembrane technology in three applications involving trickling filters and equalization basins. The treatment plant had two rectangular reactors with rigid covers, which were still releasing odors with the commercial odor control system it had used since 2012—hoods installed in the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors and a gas suction and exhaust system, which was directed to a composite gas scrubber with a chlorinated solution washing system, says Thiago Bassoli, plant maintenance supervisor, Coca-Cola FEMSA. Around 2017, the plant was also building a new glass-lined homogenization tank, and Anue Water Technologies would install the reinforced membrane commercial odor control system with integrated activated carbon filters on both.
Bassoli says an improvement in odor occurred right away after installation. The plant uses a MSA ALTAIR® 5X multi-gas detector, which saw noticeable improvement after the geomembrane installation. The need for facility maintenance also decreased, improving the overall process and reducing downtime, Bassoli says.
Oxygen and Ozone Wastewater Treatment Systems
Anue Water Technologies’ wastewater treatment company also produces its own odor-controlling technologies. The company started in 2005 and has built its foundation working with municipal facilities designing oxygen and ozone wastewater treatment systems.
In forced main sewer lines where wastewater goes uphill in a pressurized line, bacteria in that dark environment, where it sits for extended periods of time, wants food, which it finds plentifully in the wastewater, but the bacteria also need oxygen to fully live and thrive. Once the bacteria consume all the free oxygen, then they move onto the oxygen molecules on nitrate which is where problems can arise. Next, the bacteria move to sulfate and consume those oxygen molecules, which produces hydrogen sulfide, a dangerous, poisonous gas with an unpleasant odor.
As the wastewater and hydrogen sulfide leave the pressurized line, it falls into a wet well, or into screens at the wastewater plant, and the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas meets the moisture in the air (H2O) and becomes sulfuric acid (H2SO4), which is highly corrosive. Most applications are handled by chemically feeding nitrate into those lines to continually feed the bacteria. However, instead of monthly chemistry applications, Anue Water Technologies created technology to feed oxygen into the line for the bacteria, so it never turns to the nitrate for food.
The FORSe2 technology uses an air compressor, appropriately sized for the application, depending on how much oxygen needs to be produced, the length and diameter of the line, and the altitude of the application. “I take that air compressor, and I run it through an oxygen generator,” Bock says. That pure oxygen goes into the forced main, and at the correct level keeps the line in an aerobic state, as opposed to an anaerobic state.
“Bacteria has plenty of oxygen. They’re happy. The water smells as good as wastewater will smell, but you don’t have the hydrogen sulfide formation occur.” Anue Water’s wastewater treatment technology can also feed ozone, in addition to oxygen, where a small quantity of ozone is generated from a side stream of oxygen. This is used in underground wet well applications, where wastewater sits.
When the well fills, a pump turns on and pushes off the waste, but while it sits, it stinks. “We have the ability to put a grinder pump in the well, and we circulate that water. We’re sucking from the bottom and discharging on the top,” Bocks says. “To that, we add ozone, and what that does is it oxidizes the carbon in the water, so that lowers the bacteria uptake of the oxygen.”
The FORSe5 combines both oxygen and ozone, and the Phantom series is the small package version of that system. “It has an oxygen generator inside of the cabinet and a small air compressor inside the cabinet, and that cabinet will be two feet deep, five foot high by four foot wide. It’s got a small footprint, and that would be utilized in a wet well application,” Bock says. A grinder pump down in the wet well brings water to the top and spreads it across a spray head called a hydrosphere where ozone is injected. “We use the Phantom system in municipalities to handle fats, oils, and grease,” Bock says.
Learn More About Commercial Odor Control and Anue Water Technologies
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