Maintenance
What are the OxyMem cleaning and storage procedures?
Biofilm maintenance and control are accomplished automatically by the control system. Since the membrane is dense and has no pores, no special cleaning is required. Membranes are not subject to drying; they can be stored indoors, in dry conditions as long as they are protected from sunlight and physical damage.
If the aeration demand increases how will the oxygen transfer be maintained to prevent the system turning anaerobic?
As the load increases the oxygen supplied can be increased by increasing the airflow through the membranes. This results in an increase in overall oxygen concentration within the membranes resulting in increased performance instantaneously. Alternatively in systems where there is a large variation in aeration demand, the Oxygen transfer rate can be increased by increasing the % of oxygen in the air supplied . This will result in more kg of oxygen being transferred for a given membrane surface area.
How do you control the thickness of the biofilm?
OxyMem systems use a patented biofilm measurement technique, which determines an effective biofilm thickness on the membrane. When the control system determines that the biofilm has grown too thick for the treatment process required, the system takes steps to automatically remove the excess biofilm. The frequency of cleaning is dependent on the growth rate of the biofilm and the nature of the treatment process, but can vary from once a day to once every two weeks. Self cleaning will typically last 1-2 mins in duration so the energy burden us negligible.
How do you perform desludging?
Sludge is allowed to settle in the bottom of the tank and removed using a simple removal system. This sludge is very settable with a concentration of up to 10g/l. In a Retrofit installation, the excess biofilm would form part of the MLSS and be removed (i.e. no changes are required to the sludge removal system).
How does the full scale system control the sludge level inside the membrane tanks?
The package plant system has a sludge removal system built into the base of the tank, and we periodically
At what maximum temperature has the system been tested?
The system has been tested up to 30°C.
We can have the temperature up to 50°-69°C in summer, or for industrial water when the wastewater contains a high concentration of food residues. If the temperature is high, the OTE increases, but the behaviour of bacteria changes. Above 40°C, the bacteria stop working.
How often is biofilm thickness measured?
The frequency of biofilm measurement can be adjusted to site requirements so that as the system operates it only measures the biofilm when it expects a clean to be required. Maximum frequency will be once a day.
How do you control the amount of flow that is distributed to each process train?
The flow to the unit will be sent to a splitter box which will divide the flow equally between the two process trains.