Challenge

Due to rapid growth, a leading food producer has constructed a new headquarters, production center, research / development kitchen and warehouse / distribution facility. Groundbreaking on this new facility had occurred and the site work was already underway when the company learned they would not be able to discharge wastewater from the production facility to the city's wastewater treatment facility. The only solution was to rework floor plans in order to install a wastewater pretreatment system to protect the municipality's wastewater system.  Since the facility was already under contruction, a major factor was the coordination of all phases of the wastewater treatment solution, to ensure that the project moved forward in a timely manner.

Solution

Siemens was selected for this project because of their expertise in wastewater treatment, as well as their commitment to delivering a turnkey solution on time and within budget.

The customer considered several wastewater treatment designs and ultimately chose a pre-engineered Moving Bed Bioreactor (MBBR) system from Siemens Water Technologies as the core treatment technology. The system was deemed the most cost-effective, while meeting the project‘s requirements.  The MBBR system uses fixed film technology, where suspended biomass carriers are designed to create a large surface area for biofilm growth.  Benefits include an enhanced biological wastewater treatment process within the available footprint. With standarized systems designed for average daily organic loads ranging from 500 pounds up to 20,000 pounds per day, 75 to 85 percent removal of organics (BOD/COD) make it suitable for typical pretreatment discharge standards.  The pre-engineered system includes influent equalization to balance flow and loading, pH neutralization, nutrient addition, a pretreatment Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) for removing fats, oils and greases (FOG), the MBBR for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) removal and a DAF clarifier for final liquid/solids separation prior to discharge to a municipal sewer.

Results

The pre-engineered system ensured that the installation and site work was kept to a minimum, providing one of the most cost-effective treatment system approaches available on the market today. Since startup, the system has consistently produced effluent quality within permit limits for BOD and TSS.