Black Isle Brewery, Scotland
Plant Equipment: Ocean Professional SAF 415
- Daily flow (m3/day): 9.76
- BOD load (kg/day): 24.71
- Ammonia load (kg/day): 0.48
- Effluent target: 20:30:3
The Site
Situated on the Black Isle in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, the Black Isle Brewery produces a number of award-winning organic ales. Due to the growing popularity of their beers, they have constructed a new brewery operation to keep up with the demand. A bi-product of the brewing process is a wastewater that is high in organic load and on the Black Isle, this requires treatment prior to discharging into a sensitive brook. Due to the nature of the wastewater the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) requested an ammonia value of 3mg/L to be met on a 100 percentile basis.
EnSo International, together with Eco-Tech systems, successfully completed the supply, installation and commissioning of the wastewater treatment plant. The system has been operational since May 2010 and the results from the final effluent samples are consistently below the required consent limits.
Plant & Equipment
As there were no space restrictions on site, four treatment tanks were installed in the field adjacent to the Brewery and a fence erected around them to prevent any animals from entering. The site is subject to varying flows and loads due to ad hoc brewery tours and working a four day week. To allow for varying flows and loads, typical of a brewery, an Energy Saving Device was built in to the control panel offering the brewery up to 40% savings on the energy used. This device works in real time allowing four programmable settings that are dependent on levels of occupancy on site. As the location is very rural, the kiosk was lined with acoustic audio foam which successfully reduces the noise of the air blowers used to provide oxygen to the biological stages of the system.
Process Description
In this instance, a balance tank followed by a small primary settlement tank and a number of Submerged Aerated Filtration (SAF) tanks were installed in series. As the brewing process produces low flows and high organic loads, the concentrations are high, therefore a number of biological stages were installed to ensure that all the organic and ammonia load within the wastewater is treated prior to discharge to the brook.
