The BioTector Online TOC Analyzer monitors combined effluent from unfiltered brewery water.
Effluent from breweries contains a variety of organic and inorganic materials. Not all of the organic material is dissolved in the effluent; some organic material will remain as particulate matter. To accurately measure effluent stream quality, an online analyzer must include both dissolved and particulate organic material in its analysis.
One of our Clients Breweries
The brewery carries out its activities with an emphasis on safety for workers and the environment. Because of this emphasis on the environment, the brewery has installed its own waste water treatment plant. Due to where that the brewery is situated, space is a problem, a relatively compact but very effective WWT plant was built. The plant, however, is sensitive to rapid changes in the load of organic material, and had difficulty coping with “effluent peeks” because of its small buffering capacity.
The BioTector TOC analyzer is used to first detect these “effluent peeks” and secondly to divert flow into the buffer tank. As a result of TOC measurement, our client now has better control of discharge and, in addition to this, has a tool to help even out the load to the WWT plant, and thus will be able operate the plant more effectively, which in the end will increase the company’s bottom line.
The BioTector TOC analyzer is tested in cooperation with our client they have studied the correlation of the measurement with laboratory COD analysis. They have also tested the operational side of the analyzer, where robustness and interference from inorganic components were important factors. After an extensive test period, the BioTector met the requirements of our client, and was permanently installed.
The Application
The BioTector Online TOC Analyzer monitors the waste water directly after the skimmer that separates solid materials from the effluent directed to the waste water plant. The measurement is carried out on unfiltered samples. The COD level varies from approximately 800 mg-O/l to around 5,500 mg-O/l.
To control this effluent effectively and provide the WWT plant with warning of exceptional loads, the analyzer used must be reliable and remain online at all times. An analyzer that works with very accurate analysis in a laboratory test is no good for this type of application if it cannot provide data 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Data availability from the BioTector has proven to be very high, and calculated offline time per year is only approximately 40 hours, including all services and calibrations. This gives 99.5% online data time for the application.
Service intervals are 6 monthly, and consumables (acid, base and oxygen) are refilled every 3 weeks.