From Waste to Value

Designing a Sludge Treatment Facility

 

The Norwegian company FramTech has recently become involved in developing environmental solutions for a waste water treatment plant in Guangxi. The plant is newly built and has a BOT (build, operate, transfer) contract with Guangxi Lianda Weiheng Chemical & Biological Sewage Treatment Co., Ltd. and Deen.

 

FramTech aims to take a leading role in the design and implementation of an additional sludge treatment facility at this plant. FramTech also hopes to use the Yulin plant as a model for such add-on solutions on other waste water treatment plants both in Guangxi and elsewhere in China.

 

Sludge may contain chemicals, heavy metals, virus, bacteria or even radioactivity. This is normally left untreated on landfills in China, and treatment will limit this form of pollution of the environment considerably.

 

Input – Sewage, Output – Clean Water, Energy and Fertilizer

 

Sludge is the waste product of sewage treatment plants and is rich in methane. Methane is many times more harmful to the environment than CO2, but by using methane to produce energy, the plant can both power itself and possibly produce a surplus of energy.

 

The second positive environmental effect of sludge treatment is the possibility of turning sludge into biological fertilizer, both minimizing the landfill dumping, as well as serving as an alternative to the widely used chemical fertilizers in China.

 

Cooperation with the Consulate General in Guangzhou

 

On October 21 FramTech and their partners gave the Consul General in Guangzhou Tormod C. Endresen a tour of the Yulin waste water plant. The Consul General met with Yulin Mayor Han Yuanli and FramTech the following day.

 

“This project is a very good example of how the market may work to improve the environment. Environmental problems pose challenges, but they also open up a market for innovative industrial solutions. Co-operation in this area is a focus area in Norway’s environmental co-operation with China. I welcome the significant steps taken by the Yulin government to clean their wastewater, in line with progressive plans in this area set out by the central government. If FramTech and their partners may improve this process further by turning its end product into something valuable, this is very promising, and a technology that might be used for at similar plants elsewhere in China”, says Tormod C. Endresen.

 

This Yulin plant is the first waste water plant to be awarded a BOT contract for sludge treatment in Guangxi, which is a result of the forth government fiscal stimulus package in China.