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Process optimisation

Process optimisation and plant performance improvement

A plant can be compliant and still be run badly. Chemical overdosing, aeration running flat out because nobody trusts turning it down, sludge wasted on a schedule rather than on a measurement: none of it shows in the outlet, and all of it shows in the monthly cost.

The engagement, on one sheet
Investigate
the plant you have, as it runs
5 areas
an investigation looks at
Diagnosis
kept separate from what to do about it
Quoted
before any further work starts

Who arrives here

You are probably here because

If none of these is your situation, it is still worth a conversation: this list is not exhaustive.

  • Chemical or power cost per cubic metre is higher than it should be and nobody knows the right number
  • The plant is held inside limit by overdosing rather than by control
  • Aeration runs at full duty continuously because the alternative has never been tested
  • Sludge handling and disposal cost has become the dominant operating expense
  • The plant has capacity headroom on paper that nobody dares use

What an investigation looks at.

Lines of enquiry, not conclusions. Which of them matters for your plant is what the investigation establishes.

Line of enquiry01

Chemical use

  • Dose against demand rather than against habit, established by controlled trial
  • Dosing point, sequence, mixing energy and pH window
  • Whether a different chemistry does the same job for less, tested rather than claimed
  • Automatic dosing control where the load actually varies

Line of enquiry02

Energy

  • Aeration control against dissolved oxygen, which is usually the largest single saving available
  • Blower duty, turndown, diffuser condition and pressure loss
  • Pump duty points, oversizing and continuous running of standby equipment

Line of enquiry03

The biological process

  • Sludge age controlled to a number rather than wasted to a routine
  • F/M ratio and whether the process is being run in the range it performs in
  • Stability under real load variation, rather than at one steady condition

Line of enquiry04

Sludge and residuals

  • Sludge production, thickening and dewatering performance
  • Polymer dose and cake dryness against disposal cost per tonne
  • Whether sludge volume is a treatment outcome or a chemical dosing outcome

Line of enquiry05

Control and measurement

  • What is measured, how often, and whether anybody acts on it
  • Instrumentation that would pay for itself, and instrumentation that would not
  • An operating regime the site can actually hold after we leave
What an engagement produces, level by level

Problems this usually arrives with.

Talk to an Expert

Bring us the symptom. We will find the cause.

Describe what the plant is doing, in your own words. You do not need to know the cause first.

Talk to an Expert

A specialist calls you and tells you the right next step and its cost.

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