Pioneering Sludge Dryer Produces Dry Fuel For Yorkshire Water And Wastewater Treatment Works
Aqualogy have supplied and installed a state of the art sludge dryer for Yorkshire Water. The first of its kind to produce a dry fuel on a wastewater treatment works, the dryer is one of a series of key innovations as part of Yorkshire Water’s ambitious large-scale R&D project on advanced thermal conversion.
As a main player in the water treatment sector in the UK, Yorkshire Water currently serve around 5 million inhabitants, by operating more than 700 water and sewage treatment works and 120 reservoirs and looking after 62,000 miles of water and sewerage mains. The solution implemented near Huddersfield by Aqualogy is the STC low temperature thermal drying technology, specifically sized for the treatment of 1 tonne/hr of digested and non-digested municipal sludge.
The STC technology from Aqualogy has a number of references of municipal sludge dryers throughout the world, several of which produce dried sludge used as a fuel off-site, but this project for Yorkshire Water is the first to produce a dry fuel used on a wastewater treatment works.
The bespoke dryer design was based on a container sized monoblock dryer, with an integrated cover over it, simplifying the on-site installation works and commissioning process. Due to this reduced delivery time, the on-site assembly took just two weeks.
The dewatered sludge is imported from several plants and fed into the Aqualogy-STC dryer. The sludge is dried to 90% DS and is then utilized to produce electricity which can be used on site or sold to Grid.
The Aqualogy-STC dryer operates at low temperature, allowing for high usage of low grade waste heat. Beyond this, the operation at low temperature (usually using water below 90ºC) also means that the dryer sits out of any ATEX zoning and is intrinsically safe.
The STC dryer was commissioned by Yorkshire Water in September this year. Both Yorkshire Water and their main contractor on site, have expressed their thanks to Aqualogy for a “1st class service”. The operation and maintenance of the STC dryer has now been transferred to the on-site operators and it is now successfully generating dried sludge from different sources to produce renewable electricity.
Source: Aqualogy Environment Ltd