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Reference project
Mellifiq delivers Finland’s first municipal micropollutant solution
Introduction.
Scenic city receives the first ever system to treat pharmaceutical residues in Finland
In this project, we are visiting Finland in order to deliver a treatment solution to a Finnish wastewater treatment plant.
The plant is located in the outskirts of a picturesque lakeside city just an hour’s drive northwest of the Finnish capital. It is renowned for being an ideal place for holiday homes right in the middle of nature, and is in the top when it comes to municipalities with the largest amount of holiday homes. The 47,500 inhabitants in this city rely on the wastewater treatment plant for sewage treatment. The plant currently processes an average flow of 300 m³/h.
The problem.
The municipality is part of a national initiative that, for the first time in Finland, is committed to investing in API removal technology for wastewater. The government and the municipalities are now looking to address the challenges posed by micropollutants and pharmaceutical residues. They also want to prepare for and adapt to the new, upcoming European water treatment standards. To prepare for such extensive changes in the treatment framework, it is essential to know as much as possible about current treatment technologies, and the effects that current wastewater treatment procedures have.
An extensive pre-study conducted by Mellifiq established that the wastewater treatment plant in this project emits substantial amounts of APIs every year; up to 100 kg of active substances pass through the primary and secondary treatment steps, which can have devastating long-term effects on the nearby recipients.
The solution.
In preparation for full-scale implementation, Mellifiq delivered a complete pilot system with an O-GAC™ process, including an ozonation step and an adsorption step using select high-grade granular activated carbon.
The system was installed as an extension to the secondary sludge settling tanks so that it could act as the final treatment step. The combination of ozonation and filter polishing was designed and then integrated in order to form a complete turn-key delivery that we at Mellifiq commissioned on-site.
Evaluation.
The system performance was extensively evaluated by Mellifiq engineers and field technicians according to a thought-out sampling plan: more than 90 active substances were evaluted.
The average total removal rate was confirmed to be at more than 95%, much better than official rate of 80% mentioned in European guidelines. It was also confirmed that the adsorption bed lifetime could be extended by 15% using upstream ozonation. The ozonation removes the majority of APIs present in the feed water.
