BioCrack: Greater gas yield and lower costs with BioCrack® disintegration unit

Case Study - sewage plant in south Germany

The 240,000 EW plant produces approx. 54,000 tonnes of waste sludge per year. This is thickened by a machine before being fed to the two digestion towers (5000m³ each).

Staff at a sewage plant in south Germany have once again been asking themselves “How can we reduce our running costs and sludge quantities?” Having come across the BioCrack electro-kinetic disintegration unit, they decided to test it.

The BioCrack system was installed downstream of the thickening machine. After thickening, the sludge was prepared with a combination of the RotaCut and BioCrack systems before being pumped into the digestion towers.
This allowed a gas yield increase of 8%. Based on a basic energy price of 10 euro cents and assuming that the CHP has approx. 35% efficiency, this would mean savings of over 18,000 euros per year.
At the same time, the sewage sludge quantity was reduced by over 11%. More than 900 fewer tonnes of sewage sludge need to be disposed of per year. At an average disposal cost of 70 euros per tonne, this generates savings of over 63,000 euros per years.

As a side effect, almost 18% less coagulating agent is required, which with the figures given would generate additional savings of almost 2,900 euros per year (based on costs of 3 euros per kg of coagulating agent).
When you consider that, it's no wonder that the staff at the plant decided to employ the disintegration unit on a permanent basis.