Aquarden has tested SCWO as a purification method to improve the destruction of organic substances in leachate for a couple of years.
This initial MUDP project brought us much closer to the goal, so stay informed about our next phase, where we look deeper into the pre-treatment process.
Aquarden has tested its SCWO system (Waterox) as a purification method to improve the destruction of organic substances and reduce the amount of heavy metals and other undesirable substances in leachate for a couple of years. This initial MUDP project, partly financed by the Danish Environmental Agency), was a cooperatation between Aquarden, Odense Renovation, and COWI. The project brought us much closer to the goal; namely to develop a total solution for treatment of landfill leachate at competitive prises.
COD reduction of more than 99.9%
The key conclusions were that COD (Chemcial Oxigen Demand) was reduced by more than 99.9% and other substances were reduced to less than the current discharge requirements at Odense Renovation.
What still needs to be optimised is the pre-treatment process – i.e. the phase before the leachate enters Aquarden’s SCWO plant. Aquarden has therefore decided to continue optimizing and improving the pre-treatment process.
So stay tuned!
Link to the EPA-report in Danish:
http://svana.dk/media/207014/afsluttende-rapport-2-2.pdf
Translation of the resumé
This report presents a review of the MUDP project: Purification of leachate from landfills with SCWO.
The report is written as a summary of the four interim reports written in the project, and therefore serves as the final report for the project.
The purpose of the project was to develop and test a total solution for the purification of leachate from landfills. The solution should be able to purify leachate at an economically competitive price, and to help improve the decomposition of the organic substances in leachate, as well as reduce the amount of heavy metals and other substances. This will lead to a lesser environmental impact from landfills.
The target group is partly landfills, politicians and environmental agencies who, as national decision makers, have the opportunity to be introduced to a new BAT (Best Available Technology), thereby ensuring more stringent emission requirements and consequently environmental impact.
The report presents the most important results of the three-year long project with the aim of developing a pre-treatment and SCWO method for continuous and safe operation for the treatment of leachate. A long lasting cooperation between Aquarden Technologies, Odense Renovation, and COWI as a consultant. The tests results in a pre-treatment method that can be used to concentrate the leachate up to 20 times, as well as reducing the amount of salt in the waste stream so that the leachate can be purified using the SCWO plant. In addition, it is confirmed that SCWO eliminates the organic substances in the leachate. The project has not been without problems, which is elaborated through the report.
Pre-treatment has caused more problems than expected, and all designs to improve pre-treatment have not reached the desired level, where it runs smoothly for two weeks. In addition, it has taken many extra hours, which has meant less tests of the SCWO system than desired. Aquarden Technologies has decided to continue the development of pre-treatment after the end of the project and has already prepared several ideas for the improvement of the treatment.
Key conclusions are: COD reduced by more than 99.9% and other unwanted substances reduced to less than the current discharge requirements at Odense Renovation. This means that when reliable pre-treatment works, SCWO can meet the requirements for cleaned leachate.