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Wehrle have received an order to install a full turnkey treatment system, which will economically and sustainably produce electricity and heat from wastewater at SNP's factory in Lingen, Germany.

SNP, a division of the VION Food Group, wanted to extend their wastewater treatment capacity and they employed Wehrle's extensive expertise to help develop an environmentally friendly and economic solution, allowing them to install best available technology. At the Lingen site, SNP produces high-quality animal proteins and fats for the national and international market. The resulting wastewater is treated in the existing biological wastewater treatment plant, before being discharged to the municipal sewer for treatment off site. To improve effluent quality and ensure long term reliability, SNP decided to invest in a new wastewater treatment facility. They have employed Wehrle to undertake a full turnkey project including planning, construction and commissioning of the wastewater treatment and energy recovery process.

WEHRLE will use its proven BIODIGAT® SB process, a high-capacity anaerobic process, characterised by high reliability, consistent product quality and economic efficiency. This will be optimised to deal with the special local conditions at Lingen. The high performance technology also has the benefit of being compact so it can be efficiently installed within the footprint available on site.

Wehrle's advanced anaerobic wastewater treatment system does not only eliminate the polluting compounds contained in the wastewater, but also efficiently converts them into biogas, with an associated high energy content. The biogas will be utilised by Wehrle for the cogeneration of heat and electricity in a combined heat and power unit (CHP).

The turnkey process solution engineered by Wehrle will contain all equipment and controls required, including the anaerobic system, biogas treatment process and the CHP gas utilisation plant. The interfaces required between client and process contractor will be kept to a minimum, reducing the time required for installation and commissioning.

The new energy from wastewater treatment facility at Lingen will process 450 m³/d of effluent from SNP's site. In addition to treated water, 2,400 m3/d of biogas will be generated which is converted into heat and electricity in the grid-connected CHP unit. The electricity produced will be sufficient to power 500 to 600 households.

The BIODIGAT® process is ideally suited to projects such as SNP's, where an economically efficient and sustainable treatment solution is required. The process can be utilised in various industries for the treatment of wastewater containing a high organic loading. In addition to very low operating costs and significantly reduced sludge production, the system delivers the benefit of flexible energy recovery through biogas production.

By utilising a modular construction, with the benefit of easy expandability, Wehrle's advanced technology can be adapted very simply and at reasonable cost to meet changed conditions and parameters such as different biogas utilisation strategies, increasing loads, or stricter effluent values. Also, the possibility of reusing treated water can be investigated by Wehrle's engineers by adding additional technologies and processes.

Author: Dr.-Ing. Bernd Fitzke

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