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Operating a High‐Rate Digester: The Southern Water Experience
Author(s) -
Brown S.,
Sale R.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
water and environment journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1747-6593
pISSN - 1747-6585
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-6593.2002.tb00381.x
Subject(s) - anaerobic digestion , waste management , sewage treatment , environmental science , wastewater , sewage sludge , mesophile , environmental engineering , engineering , biology , ecology , methane , genetics , bacteria
Southern Water has implemented a large capital‐investment programme in order to meet the requirements of the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. Within Southern Water, the Directive will result in a doubling in the quantity of wastewater sludge to be treated. In order to minimise the amount of sludge to be transported and produce a stabilised sludge which is suitable for recycling to agricultural land, the company's sludge strategy is based on treatment by mesophilic anaerobic digestion. This paper (a) highlights some of the consequences of operating a high‐rate digestion plant, and (b) focuses on areas such as depositions in thickened sludge digester feed lines, the start‐up procedures for high‐rate digesters, foaming, hair and fibre build‐up problems and treatment failure caused by toxicity inhibition. All these problems have been corrected or controlled and have resulted in Southern Water revising and updating its design manuals and standards, to prevent such future difficulties.