PONDUS – Digester Feed Sludge Hydrolysis Simplified

Around the world many Water Authorities are looking into biosolids strategies that minimise disposal costs, provide biogas for renewable energy use and alleviate public concern of the agricultural use of untreated biosolids.

In the last two decades the drive to maximise existing digester capacity has led to several pre-treatment processes based on sludge disintegration being deployed in Europe, UK, USA and Australia/New Zealand.

“Our partnership with CNP Cycles from Germany provides us with access to cutting edge and well proven biosolids technology, such as AirPrex® Struvite Removal and PONDUS™ Thermal Chemical Hydrolysis (TCHP).

PONDUS has been installed in 11 sites around the world – it’s an interesting process as it combines an alkaline process step with the use of low-grade recovered heat, but with the massive benefit of lower operating temperatures as compared to the pure thermal hydrolysis.

Instead of operating at 140 or 150 deg C, PONDUS operates at 70 – 80 deg C resulting in a greatly simplified hydrolysis process, yet still providing the benefit of higher sludge dewaterability, increased biogas production, increased digester capacity and reduced sludge viscosity. The low temperature and pressure also do away with breakdown of various complex proteins that would otherwise colour and load the digester supernatant.

With 11 references operating on plants sized from 65,000 through to 1,500,000EP, PONDUS is a good fit for many sewage plant treatment plants across Australia and New Zealand that are looking to secure higher renewable energy yields from existing or new assets” says John Koumoukelis, CEO of Hydroflux EPCO.

CNP Cycles is a German based company that provides advanced biosolids technology to recover nutrients and increase biogas production from anaerobic digesters. The company has delivered several groundbreaking projects within the biosolids space in Germany, Netherlands, Middle East and China.

If you would like more information on the PONDUS system please email [email protected].