Project Details

Project Delivery

Discussion

Situation

A company in Switzerland has specialised in the surface finishing of metal workpieces. It uses the mass finishing process to treat gears, hinges, handles, springs, and other metal products. Around three cubic metres of wastewater are produced every day during operation. The company has set itself the task of treating this wastewater as well as possible so that it can be reused.

The company already had a wastewater treatment plant, which consisted of an immersion separator, a wastewater splitting plant and a centrifuge. The wastewater contains the abrasion of all common metals as well as ceramic and plastic abrasion on the one hand, and oils and greases used as lubricants on the other.

Problem

From the outset, the customer expressed concerns that the existing centrifuge was not able to reliably remove the metal abrasion from the wastewater. He therefore asked for a solution to concentrate the abrasion in a sewage sludge and thus separate it from the clear water.

Solution

The ideal solution for this project was a ClearFox® lamella clarifier. This utilises a physical separation process to concentrate particles in the wastewater downwards into a sludge. PPU Umwelttechnik GmbH offers the process in a plastic tank with a flow rate of 1 m³/hour. The plastic tank is rotationally moulded and has no predetermined breaking point. This makes it suitable for both underground and above-ground installation.

For this project, it was particularly important that the sludge did not thicken, as otherwise it would be difficult to remove from the tank. Regular emptying is therefore important. To ensure this, the ClearFox® team added a cyclical sludge pump that pumps out the sludge in accordance with the amount of wastewater.

For this project, PPU Umwelttechnik GmbH took on the planning, manufacture, installation, commissioning, and training of the employees on site.