Gulf Construction Online - Green filter puts the lid on wastewater odours

MEP Services

The EcoFilter ... can remove more than 99.9 per cent of H2S odours.

Green filter puts the lid on wastewater odours

01 February 2012

BIOAIR Solutions, a leading US provider of biological odour and emission control solutions, was at the Arabian MEP Exhibition 2012 in Bahrain last month to showcase a new “green” technology for odour removal in wastewater treatment plants.

The innovative technology is being embraced as an effective “green” alternative for reducing odours and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) emissions from wastewater treatment plant and pumping stations airstreams in the Middle East.

The biological odour control system, EcoFilter, is capable of removing more than 99.9 per cent of H2S odours from the airstreams of wastewater facilities without the use of chemical scrubbers or activated carbon systems, says the company.

BioAir is present in the Middle East on projects for Qatar’s Public Works Authority (Ashghal) and municipalities in the UAE. The company is also in touch with Bahrain’s Ministry of Works to employ the technology at the Tubli sewage treatment plant (STP) and the contractor of the Muharraq STP, which is under construction. The ministry, says an official, has expressed serious interest in BioAir’s system.

“The municipalities in the Middle East are often plagued with odour issues around wastewater treatment plants due to high ambient temperatures (sometimes as high as 55 deg C) and sewer lines that often stretch for many kilometres,” says Dr Louis le Roux, president of BioAir Solutions. “The high temperatures combined with long detention times of sewage in the sewer lines provide for very high H2S concentrations (sometimes more than 1,000 ppmv (parts per million by volume) leading to both odour and corrosion problems.”

He says the current solutions of using chemical scrubbers or activated carbon systems to treat odours entail high operating costs. Carbon systems require frequent replacement of the media, which then needs to be landfilled. Chemical scrubbers call for the use of hazardous chemicals that are dangerous for the operators and harmful to the environment, and are becoming increasingly costly due to high import costs.

BioAir’s EcoFilter uses no chemicals and the media is designed to last more than 20 years. Thus, it is a totally “green solution” with low operating costs and no danger for operators nor the environment, Dr le Roux claims.

The EcoFilter technology from BioAir uses an engineered synthetic media designed to provide uniform and optimised mass transfer of odorous compounds within its controlled microenvironment. This enables the growth and proliferation of specific bacterial species that effectively remove wastewater treatment plant odours. The patented design, with its unique engineered air flow channels, effectively controls mass transfer and eliminates the plugging, which is common in other types of systems. This high reliability has been important in the growing acceptance of this ground-breaking technology, he states.

“Based on several years of research and development, we have perfected a biological solution that can handle both organic and inorganic odours,” says Dr le Roux. “Plus, because of the increased bacterial population and uniform air flow distribution designed into the EcoBase media, we can treat higher odour loadings in less time than other biological products. This benefits our customers since the reactor sizes we provide are much smaller than that of competing technologies.”

Dr le Roux notes that the company’s technology has had “real world” application at municipal wastewater treatment plants in the US and Canada where BioAir has more than 30 installations. He says the EcoFilter system was shown to remove more than 99.9 per cent of H2S odours, including 95 per cent of all odours.

According to him, the EcoFilter line of products can treat air streams from 500 cu m per hour to over 200,000 cu m per hour, and meets the needs of facilities ranging from pump stations to headworks/dewatering or sludge-drying operations at wastewater treatment plants.

BioAir is fully qualified to provide a unified solution for an entire wastewater treatment plant.

“Utilities interested in an environment-friendly, simple-to-operate technology that virtually eliminates odours without the use of hazardous chemicals, have embraced the solutions provided by BioAir,” says Dr le Roux. “And with superior service after the sale, the EcoFilter technology is rapidly becoming the new industry standard for handling wastewater odours.”

BioAir has established a local presence in the Middle East by opening an office in Dubai, UAE, which will be spearheaded by Mohamed Sheraz Hussain as the regional manager for the Middle East and North Africa. BioAir Solutions’ headquarters is located in Voorhees, New Jersey, US.