Outstanding Sludge Dewatering Performance for Margaret River Wastewater Treatment Plant

The Margaret River Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) was recently upgraded to increase capacity and discharge water quality.

As part of the works new sludge thickening and dewatering technology was provided by Hydroflux Epco Pty Ltd. This included a HUBER SDISC Rotary Disc Thickener and QPRESS Rotary Screw Press.

After an 8 week performance test period the HUBER QPRESS achieved an average cake solids concentration of 20.1%DS with a capture rate of 95%. This is well above the target of 18%DS.

Waste activated sludge is pre-thickened in a HUBER SDISC and then dewatered in the QPRESS.

“Whilst we have thickened and dewatered waste activated sludge directly in a QPRESS in many applications, the pre-thickening step maximises performance of the QPRESS” says Daniel Potente of Hydroflux Epco.

SDISC is a unique mechanical sludge thickener that employs a flat mesh disc as the filtration medium. It thickens sludge from 0.3% to over 4%DS enabling better utilization of the downstream dewatering equipment, or simply reducing offsite sludge disposal costs.

QPRESS is an inclined rotary screw press used for mechanical dewatering of municipal and industrial sludges. QPRESS can reduce sludge volumes by 85 – 90% which results in a reduction in offsite sludge disposal costs.

Both technologies are low speed which results in lower operating and maintenance costs as compared to other types of technologies.

The staff at Water Corporation are very pleased with the HUBER sludge dewatering equipment and have provided the following comment.

“Both the HUBER disc thickener and rotary screw press dewatering units performed above design expectations and these unit processes proved to be reliable, robust and operator friendly”.

Contact Hydroflux to further discuss how we can help with wasterwater treatment options for your mine site.