ECOSTAR

D R A F T

Compact sewage treatment plant using

Introduction
Decentral or source biological treatment of sewage in compact plants becomes
recently more and more important because of several reasons:

The connection of smaller settlements, located quite far from municipal

effluent collector systems is not economical

Due to the reasonable performance of modern compact sewage

treatment plants (S.T.P.), their effluents can be reused for rinsing, cooling
and irrigation.

For all these cases there is a demand for efficient and economical decentrally
operated compact biotreatment plants.

State of the art

The currently offered solutions represent primarly compact aerobic activated
sludge plants, respective their modifications designed on basis as the
adequate large scale plants, including also their problems , like

High required specific volumes

High energy consumtion for aeration
High sludge production, meaning also
High biotreatment costs

Our solution
Due to the high content of activated carbon in the LEVAPOR biocarrier, the
LEVAPOR fluidised bed reactor offers however some very important
advantages over the classic solution :

Adsorbant, porous LEVAPOR biocarrier

Remarkably higher pollutant removal efficiencies

Higher process stability
remarkably lower sludge production and
much lower energy consumption than common aerobic plants.

Equalisation

Aerobic reactor

Clarifier

Simplified process flow diagram of LEVAPOR fluidised bed reactor

The biotreatment process

The mechanically preteated effluent arrives at first into the equalisation section
aerated by coarse bubble aeration,in order to avoid establishment of anaerobic
processes. In this plant section the fluctuation raw sewage becomes hydrauliccally equalized, while dissolved and dispersed pollutants will hydrolize and
undergo partially biodegradation. From the equalisation the sewage arrives via
gravitation into the fluidised bed reactor and treated under aerobic conditions
by immobilised microorganisms, fixed at only 15 vol.% adsorbant, porous
LEVAPOR biocarriers, where COD and ammoniacal nitrogene will be oxidized
nearby completely utilizing also the most important advantages of this
technology, enabled by the content of activated carbon :

the fast colonisation by most important microorganisms, especially of

slowly growing nitrifying bacteria

remarkably higher process stability

higher loading rates and pollutant removal efficiency

lower energy consumption for aeration because of penetration and

longer residence time of oxygene within the porous carrier body

lower sludge production because of the longer retention of the sludge in

the bioreactor and its higher oxidation

under deficitary oxygene content within the carrier body, the produced
nitrate will be converted simultaneously into molecular nitrogene
(simultaneous denitrification under aerobic conditions) and

the highly active biofilm will degrade also hazardous substances, like
PAHs .

The aeration of the bioreactor occurs by fine bubble aeration by membrane

aerators installed at the reactor bottom.
The aerated sewage contains additionally to the 15 vol.% carrier fixed biomass
also 3 to 4 g/L highly active suspended sludge flocs, removing usually the
easily degradable pollutants as well as dead microbial cells, released from the
biofilm surface by abrasion. By arriving raw sewage this suspension will be
forced toward the screen, installed before the opening to the clarifying section,
where the separation of fluidized carrier from the leaving sludge suspension
takes place. The carrier with the biofilm will remain in the bioreactor, while the
sludge-water suspension arrives into the clarifying area, where the sludge
flocs will settle and recycled into the bioreactor or removed from the clarifier,
conditioned and dewatered.

Technical data for a 1000 I.E. plant

Parameter
Flow
Flow
COD
BOD
TKN
Equalisation
Aerobic reactor
LEVAPOR
O2-input
Air flow
Excess sludge
Energy

Dimension
m/24 h
m/12 h
Kg/d
Kg/d
Kg/d
m
m
m
Kg/d
m/h
Kg/d
KWh

1000 I.E. STP

120
12
120
60
12
20
50
7,5+2
156
80 estimated
36- 40
78 estim.

___________________________________________________________________

LEVAPOR GmbH
51379-Leverkusen,
Germany

www.levapor.com
e-mail: levapor@web.de
mobil: +49-177-786-5533