Water supply allows incineration plants to be self-sufficient and sustainable. The loop begins from pre-treatment and desalination.
Seawater pumped by the plant first goes through pre-treatment, such as screening, settlement and filtration. In the pre-treatment process, two chemicals – ferric chloride and polymer – aid the suspended substances in the seawater coagulate and sediment.
Desalination is the most crucial step to ensure highly purified water suitable for incineration needs. The seawater will then pass through the desalination device called reverse osmosis (RO). RO processes water purification by utilising a partially permeable membrane to filter out salt from water. In some cases, there is thirty percent of the seawater to be highly purified. The rest is treated as reject water and will be discharged to the sea.
The highly purified water is the process water that runs throughout the incinerator for electricity generation. RO requires power to run the process. Given that the incinerator can trigger the turbine to produce electricity, the greenhouse gas effect and power cost stay minimal. And since the RO water is too cleared for human use, not many minerals remained to maintain humans’ health. Minerals have to be added to turn the RO water into potable water.
Water is the renewable resource in the incineration plant when consolidating in wastewater treatment on site. Wastewater in the incineration plant does not come from the waste the plant treated but is the output of on-site potable water use.
Moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) treats wastewater with a tank of bacteria living on the plastic carriers, which the design maximises the surface area holding bacteria. The bacterias consume the dirt contained in the wastewater. Activated carbon will further filter the water. And lastly, ultraviolet to kill the rest of the bacteria before reuse.
Water is the lifeline of the entire incineration operation. Successful total water management is a less-is-more approach to waste management sustainability
By: ANewR Consulting Limited, a digital environmental consultant headquartered in Hong Kong since 2008. Our expertise has grown into the context of air and water qualities, noise, green building, waste management, and remediation. With extensive know-how in environmental planning and assessment, feasibility study and policy review, ecological design, monitoring, and audit (EM&A), ANewR has matured to be a leading management consultancy. Standing in the digital transformation reign, ANewR has participated in various environmental digital projects – interactive 3D visualisation, immersive automation virtual environment, Virtual reality, automation system, and monitoring platforms.
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