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 as much electricity as possible from biogas. This not only ensures significant operational cost savings, but also improves the environmental profile of the plant. Enhanced digestion through the use of the EXELYS? continuous thermal hydrolysis process has the potential to help a large wastewater treatment plant move towards electrical energy self-sufficiency. This article aims to use a modern European wastewater treatment plant as a case study to investigate the potential advantages an EXELYS?-DLD (Digestion-Lysis-Digestion) process could provide. The results indicate that despite already having an effective and efficient anaerobic digestion process, through implementation of the EXELYS?-DLD process, the plant has the potential to cover 65% of its total electrical needs from biogas. This is 33% more than the current situation. When looking to the future through the optimization of the wastewater treatment process and the application of the EXELYS?-DLD, large WWTP’s have the potential to be completely electrical energy self-sufficient. This would provide a significant financial advantage as electrical prices rise and carbon taxes are enforced.