Enhanced digestion with EXELYS?-DLD – a direct pathway to a sustainable and cost effective wastewater treatment plant

摘要

There is an increasing need for large wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to generate asmuch electricity as possible from biogas. This not only ensures significant operational costsavings, but also improves the environmental profile of the plant. Enhanced digestionthrough the use of the EXELYS? continuous thermal hydrolysis process has the potential tohelp a large wastewater treatment plant move towards electrical energy self-sufficiency. Thisarticle aims to use a modern European wastewater treatment plant as a case study toinvestigate the potential advantages an EXELYS?-DLD (Digestion-Lysis-Digestion)process could provide. The results indicate that despite already having an effective andefficient anaerobic digestion process, through implementation of the EXELYS?-DLDprocess, the plant has the potential to cover 65% of its total electrical needs from biogas. Thisis 33% more than the current situation. When looking to the future through the optimizationof the wastewater treatment process and the application of the EXELYS?-DLD, largeWWTP’s have the potential to be completely electrical energy self-sufficient. This wouldprovide a significant financial advantage as electrical prices rise and carbon taxes areenforced.