Among the major challenges facing councils in Australia is the need to treat growing amounts of wastewater caused by population growth; the costs of this treatment and compliance with the new and stringent discharge limits.
The South Rockhampton Sewage Treatment Plant now serves a population of more than 19,000 people, the price of electricity in Queensland rose more than 20% in July of 2013 and the effluent limit is 5-10 milligrams per litre for total nitrogen.
However, thanks to an upgrade of this treatment plant, the Rockhampton Regional Council has achieved a total nitrogen limit as low as 3.1 milligrams per litre while aiming to reduce electricity costs by up to 20%.
“More than half of the energy used in a treatment plant such as ours is consumed in the biological/aeration process. This is why we have upgraded the plant by retrofitting it with the highly-efficient aeration system of AEROSTRIP® Diffusers,” said Counsellor Greg Belz of Rockhampton Regional Council.
“We chose Hydroflux HUBER to install 80 of these four-metre AEROSTRIPS® not only because they will cut our energy use while reducing our carbon footprint; but also because Hydroflux HUBER provided performance guarantees for the installation. These guarantees, which have been met and verified, included oxygen transfer rates.”
Luis Bastos, a Director of the Hydroflux HUBER Pty Ltd, said: “AEROSTRIPS® are easy to retrofit to into existing sites. What makes them particularly popular is that, as a result of the superior materials used in their construction, they outlast all other diffuser technologies on the market.
“The main benefits of the AEROSTRIP® diffusers are the significant power savings they achieve by the high oxygen transfer rate 4.0-5.0 kgO2/kW and the robustness of the membrane, which has a life of greater than 12 years. All of this is without fouling or loss of pressure. Proof of the popularity of this system of diffusers can be found in the fact that AEROSTRIPS® have been installed at over 2,000 sites worldwide.
“They have proved particularly popular in Queensland as AEROSTRIPS® also deliver cost savings in both electricity and by lowering maintenance costs. The South Rockhampton Sewage Treatment Plant is the fifth installation in Queensland,” he adds.
* copy supplied by Hydroflux Industrial
