VertiCel Helps Meet Class 1A Standards in China
North China Municipal Engineering Design & Research Institute and Tianjin Municipal Engineering Design & Research Institute have recently accepted the VertiCel Process technology and selected it for their respective municipal wastewater treatment plant up-grade projects.
According to Siemens Water Technologies, the energy-efficient wastewater process not only meets stringent effluent requirements of China's new Class 1A standards for nitrogen and phosphorus removal but is engineered to save space and energy.
Siemens recently completed a large-scale, pilot plant in the city of Tianjin. The company supplied the VertiCel process to Tianjin Capital Environmental Protection Co., Ltd. for the retrofit of one of its five existing 90,000 cubic meters per day wastewater treatment trains at the Xianyang Road Wastewater Treatment Plant. The full-scale pilot system demonstrated the process as a cost-effective solution for upgrade of existing wastewater treatment infrastructure to meet the new Class 1A standards, the most stringent wastewater discharge requirements for the country's regulatory agency.
In its existing design, the anoxic oxidation process at the Xianyang Road wastewater treatment plant was unable to meet the new Class 1A Total Nitrogen discharge standards of 15 mg/l. There were several critical requirements for the plant upgrade: timing was critical due to a tight construction schedule; space was limited, so existing infrastructure needed to be used; and normal plant performance was essential during the construction of the new plant. In view of these challenges, the technology upgrade needed to meet both the discharge standards and also be easily retrofitted into the existing plant.
The VertiCel biological nutrient removal system combines mechanical aeration in the anoxic tank with diffused aeration in the aerobic zones optimizing process efficiency. Because the aerated anoxic processes used in the process nitrifies throughout the entire process, it can be easily retrofitted into the existing tanks. In addition, it consumes on average 30 percent less power when compared to traditional aeration systems.
The pilot demonstration was completed in June. Siemens was awarded the contract to update the 450,000 Xianyang Road Treatment Plant.