Micropollutant Removal at Klippan Wastewater Treatment Plant
Introduction.
Located at the South-West tip of Sweden, Klippan municipality boasts a top performing wastewater reclamation facility, necessary for sustaining the sensitive ecosystem in nearby recipients. The facility serves the entire city of more than 10,000 individuals, with BOD, Total-N and phosphorus removal.
The problem.
Despite excellent treatment performance and exceeding the current treatment compliances, Klippan wastewater treatment plant grapples with emitting micropollutants, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). Since preserving the pristine recipients is a priority for the city council, a solution needed was needed due to the long-term detrimental effects of APIs on flora and fauna.
The solution.
Mellifiq was approached to design a complete solution for Klippan municipality. The requirements were straight-forward: deliver a future-proof solution with highest possible removal rates of APIs, exceeding the expected future legislation levels, at lowest possible operating costs. Various technologies needed to be evaluated in order to tailor a solution to adapt to the conditions at the facility.
Mellifiq delivered a solution with performance validation, including conducting a pre-study to determine the API concentration profile throughout the current treatment process, showing effluent API concentrations in excess of 100,000 ng/L, equivalent to more than 40 kg annually.
Mellifiq implemented advanced oxidation through a turn-key RENA Tellus X ozonation system, coupled with a Water Maid FlexKarb C adsorption polishing step (O-GAC™) as well as Water Maid N-series nanofiltration system. All systems were integrated in mobile containerized units as a complete tertiary treatment process line, including full contracting responsibilities for solving feed water from the existing biological treatment process.
A pre-filtration step to ensure maximum uptime and performance was implemented using our Water Maid FlexKarb S systems.
Evaluation.
Mellifiq conducted a complete performance evaluation including API treatment levels with efficiency reports, showing less than EUR 0.02/m³ in total operating costs for the combined oxidation and adsorption O-GAC™ process, achieving more than 99% total API removal rate.
The Water Maid N-system achieved more than 95% removal at less than EUR 0.09/m³ operational costs. It was established that key API markers including Diclofenac and Paracetamol were completely eliminated.
“We have removed 95 procent of all pharmaceutical residues. Our goal was 80 procent.” – Mikael Gulin, Section Director.
Care to read more on the project?
Here you can find an article published by Helsingborgs Dagblad on the Klippan Wastewater treatment plant project: Article