Industrial, Food & Beverage

Visy Paper Anaerobic Plant

Posted: 20 Feb, 2012

Visy1 thumbVisy Paper contracted Aquatec Maxcon to design and construct a large anaerobic plant at their site in Smithfield, NSW. Paques BV, the supplier of the BIOPAQ® IC and long term partner of Aquatec Maxcon have delivered several plants with similar wastewater, managing the high calcium content of this recycle paper successfully.

The plant design was preceded by an onsite pilot trial with an anaerobic pilot plant from Aquatec Maxcon.

The full scale plant is designed to treat 20,000 kg COD/day and has a calcium concentration of up to 800 mg/L. The treatment process consists of a Balance tank, IC reactor of 800 m3 and diameter of 6.5 meters, Aeration tank, DAF as well as a WAS collection tank.

Visy2 thumbThe Visy wastewater contains a high concentration of sulphate, which results in a biogas with 10,000 ppm of hydrogen sulphide. The plant incorporates a Thiopaq® biological desulphurisation unit, which dissolves the H2S from the biogas in a scrubber. 

This H2S gets converted into elemental sulphur in the Thiopaq unit which has minimal power and chemical cost, whilst removing over 99% of the H2S. This was the first Thiopaq® application in Australia. 

One week after commissioning in July 2008, the plant achieved a significantly better than required effluent quality which produces 250 – 300 m3/hour of biogas. The client is currently considering incorporating Gas MicroTurbines from Aquatec Maxcon for power generation from the biogas.

Smiths Food Group Water Re-Use Plant

Posted: 20 Feb, 2012

Smiths1 ThumbThe Smiths Food Group contracted Aquatec Maxcon to design and construct a 1.3ML/d wastewater reuse plant on their production site at Tingalpa, Queensland.

The plant already had an existing screen, oil and grease trap and heavily overloaded MBBR. To alleviate the plant loading, a DAF and a BIOPAQ® IC were added. UF and RO membranes, UV as well as chlorine dosing to bring the water up to better than potable water standards for non direct food contact reuse in the factory were also added. The UF and RO were designed and built by Aquatec Maxcon.

The primary and secondary part of the plant was started up in July 2009. The BIOPAQ® IC reactor removes around 85% of the soluble COD. The plant has extensive odour treatment with a system for the high hydrogen sulphide off gas and a carbon filter for the low sulphide/high VOC off gas streams.

The SCADA system is designed for the plant to run in automatic mode. 

The entire plant was designed by Aquatec Maxcon, installed by Aquatec Services, and the electrical works for the control system were undertaken by MPA Engineering. Together as the Aquatec Maxcon Group, the complete vertically integrated team delivered all project requirements from internal resources.  

The project was performed on a so-called cost plus basis with an agreed margin on all works. The client and consultant, GHD, were of the opinion that Aquatec Maxcon has the most suitable background, experience/references and in-house expertise to perform this type of project. This delivery method provided the client with ongoing input in the design and cost control of the project. 

Castlemaine Perkins Brewery WRP

Posted: 20 Feb, 2012

Castle1 ThumbAquatec Maxcon was awarded the design and construction of a water reuse plant at the XXXX Brewery in Milton, Brisbane. The plant is designed to treat 2800 kL/day of wastewater at a COD loading of 11,000 kg/day. The plant consists of a Balance Tank, Preacidification Tank, Mix Tank, BIOPAQ® IC, Circox® aerobic polishing, DAF, DAFF, Microfiltration, Reverse Osmosis and sludge dewatering.

The entire project was realised by the Aquatec Maxcon Group. Design and commissioning were performed by Aquatec Maxcon. All tanks, DAF and DAFF were built by Maxcon Industries and the installation was conducted by Aquatec Services. The SCADA system was integrated by MPA Electrical Engineers.

The plant, which is built with an extremely small footprint, produces water for reuse in the brewery for all but beer making purposes. The brewery uses 2.1 litres of potable water per litre of beer produced, which we believe to be world's best practice.

The anaerobic reactor produces 130m3 of biogas per day which is used for steam generation in the brewery boiler, substituting natural gas as the methane content is >85% with H2S <1,000 ppm.

The plant is equipped with 13 skid mounted chemical dosing stations for various purposes, such as pH control, phosphate removal, antiscalant, SBMS, membrane cleaning solutions, polymer biocide and disinfection.

As the plant is in the middle of Brisbane, surrounded by offices and residential areas, the plant successfully contains all odour. This is achieved by fully enclosing all reactor tanks and treating all off-gases in a two stage biological and activated carbon treatment.

The client obtained 100% of the council grant after successfully proving the target reuse.