Biological wastewater treatment in a monastery

Biological wastewater treatment is particularly important for the inhabitants of a monastery. There, mainly sanitary wastewater is produced, as well as wastewater from building cleaning, washing water and rainwater. The wastewater contains different dissolved and non-dissolved substances. The system for biological wastewater treatment in a monastery therefore had to be designed in such a way that it could reliably treat all impurities.

The first challenge in this project was the varying wastewater loads. Especially on rainy days, more water enters the treatment plant. On dry days, on the other hand, very little wastewater is produced. The system has to be designed in such a way that the different wastewater loads do not pose a challenge.

The second challenge was to save money on biological wastewater treatment. Since the monastery is not connected to a municipal sewage treatment plant via a public sewer system, the monastery residents either discharge the wastewater into a public watercourse or use it to irrigate their own gardens. After treatment, the wastewater quality must meet all requirements for direct discharge or irrigation.

The ClearFox® team offered the monastery an SBR system for biological wastewater treatment. For this, the monastery is building an underground concrete tank with three chambers. The first chamber serves as a catchment tank for the wastewater. The first coarse solids settle in it. The wastewater then flows into the second chamber, the biological stage. There, the SBR system cleans the wastewater biologically and separates it into secondary sludge and a clear water zone. While the sludge sinks to the bottom of the reactor, the clear water settles above it. This flows into the third chamber, where it is initially stored. Depending on their needs, the monastery residents can drain it off or use it themselves.

The monastery residents have to remove the accumulating secondary sludge at regular intervals. To extend these intervals, the ClearFox® team supplied a sludge press. This dewaters the sludge and thus reduces its volume. For this project, the ClearFox® team took over the complete planning of the project, the construction planning of the concrete tanks, the manufacture and delivery of the SBR plant and the commissioning on site.