Portable wastewater treatment plant for a tobacco company

An international tobacco company operates a site in the east of Sweden. There, the company focuses on the production of snus, a chewing tobacco popular in Scandinavia. As the company expanded its production facilities, a higher amount of industrial wastewater was generated, which it would like to treat in a portable wastewater treatment plant in the future. Before the capacity expansion, the company collected its wastewater to be picked up by a local tankering company at regular intervals. 

The local authorities advised the company to abandon this form of wastewater disposal after the capacity expansion. As PPU Umwelttechnik GmbH had already worked successfully with another company site in Egypt in 2018, the Swedish site also opted for a portable wastewater treatment plant from ClearFox®. 

Regulations on the direct discharge of wastewater are particularly strict in eastern Sweden. For example, the limit value for heavy metal removal of cadmium is 0.0001 and copper 0.2 milligrams per litre. The challenge for PPU Umwelttechnik GmbH was to prove that the portable wastewater treatment plant can fall below these limits. By means of wastewater samples, jar tests and elaborate laboratory analyses, the company was able to provide this proof. 

The ClearFox® portable wastewater treatment plant contains a screening, a DAF, a DiOx electrical oxidation, a sand filter and an adsorber filter. The ClearFox® team outsourced the desired sludge press. After the screening has removed all solids larger than 3 mm, the wastewater flows into the dissolved air flotation. There, the plant breaks down BOD and COD most economically. With a seven-stage circulation system, the plant diverts the wastewater and passes it through the electrical oxidation. Thus, the hourly flow rate of the ClearFox® DiOx EO is 7 m³/h, while all other plant components operate with only 1 m³/h wastewater load. 

Since sludge is produced in the ClearFox® DAF as well as in the ClearFox® DiOx EO, the press is the ideal solution to reduce the volume of sludge. This has mainly economic reasons for the company, as the sludge can be removed at much greater intervals.