FDBusiness.com

Today’s best practices in water treatment, focus on achieving operational efficiencies, energy reduction, environmental impact minimisation and waste-to-energy solutions. An independent brewery was looking to do just that. The brewery assessed best available treatment technologies before making a decision on which anaerobic process would fulfil their needs.

The Downflow Anaerobic Carrier System (DACS)® was the chosen technology, offering a number of significant operational and performance benefits, including an attractive source of revenue benefits to the brewery in the form of renewable energy and ‘green’ tariff’s

The Science Bit

DACS is a unique anaerobic treatment process using high performance flocculated anaerobic biomass, captured within a proprietary carrier system.

The wastewater with entrained biological solids flows into the DACS reactor via a simple feed pipe arrangement located at the top of the reactor. From here the wastewater passes by gravity, down through the fluidised carrier bed – treated wastewater passes out from the DACS reactor at its base.

The down flow action prevents the liberation of C02 and H2S within the process reactor, consequently DACS biogas is exceptionally pure (>90% methane). DACS provides even more benefits, most noticeably in terms of CAPEX, OPEX, and guaranteed process security.

At the brewery in question, all of the biogas created by the DACS anaerobic treatment plant will be combusted in a new Combined Heat and Power system. The products of this combustion will be electricity and heat energy, both of which will be reused by the brewery.

The DACS treatment plant has been designed to fit within a small section of land that was available to the brewery. The complete operational plant and all its ancillaries, are enclosed within a start-of-the-art building, providing the lowest possible environmental impact.