Circular Divider

Sustainable water and waste management at livestock farms

Circular Divider

An introduction to the case study

In South Africa, the annual volume of animal manure is in the order of 3 million tons. 25% of animal manure is used as fertilizers, with a small portion used as energy for heating, while the balance is wasted. The value of animal manure lies in the key nutrients it contains for soil and plants, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, and magnesium. This presents an opportunity to farmers to exploit the circular economy potential of animal manure sludge.

To prepare animal manure sludge for utilization in a circular economy, the first step is to separate the solids from the liquid allowing for both solids and liquids to be beneficially processed. Sinowatek offers the best available separation technology (the Fournier Rotary PressTM) to dewater animal manure sludge.

Water is vital for all living organisms, and it is the number one nutrition for all livestock. With clean living spaces, high-quality clean drinking water and germ-free silage (feed), livestock will prosper and so will the farming business. These goals are achievable when the SulafectTM disinfectant from Sinowatek is used in all activities and stages of livestock rearing.

Look at how we deal with the followingchallenges:

Animal manure sludge dewatering
BSY

As the volume of livestock farming waste increases, the management thereof requires additional attention in that the manure can differ widely in consistency.

The handling of liquid, semi-solid and solid sludges require different handling techniques and equipment to streamline the production, collection, transfer, treatment, storage and utilisation.

Belt and screw presses are currently the most common equipment used to dewater manure sludges. The low capture rate of suspended solids and low separation efficiency with high maintenance costs requires a rethink of these methods.

Challenge:

Currently, dewatering and composting represent the most common methods used to treat and valorize animal manure sludge allowing their utilization as a soil enhancer. The use of dewatered and composted livestock manure is favoured over untreated liquid manure due to its lower volume and smaller particle size, allowing easier handling and facilitating more uniform application.

The Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of the filtrate (wastewater) from the dewatering process must be kept under control. These levels must adhere to environmental regulations when released or reused.

The dewatering of sludge produced from animal manure is currently performed with belt and screw press technology to reduce effluent charges and BOD levels. These presses are found to be problematic because of high maintenance and low efficiency.

Solution:

Sinowatek presents the Fournier Rotary PressTM to address the problems mentioned above, since the characteristics of this technology guarantee low energy consumption and separation efficiency with low maintenance costs.

With a cake dryness around 35% total solids (TS) and a capture rate of more than95%, this technology ensures that the total suspended solids (TSS) in the filtrate is so low that little additional treatment processes for the filtrate are necessary for environmental regulation purposes.

Benefits for the client:

  • The Fournier Rotary PressTM ensures high consistency and good cake dryness using very little electrical power while operating with minimum operator assistance.
  • The higher cake dryness reduces the biological oxygen demand (BOD) of the residual water.
  • The dryer waste is lighter in weight, resulting in lower storage and logistic costs.
  • The Fournier Rotary PressTM is an expandable technology, allowing up to 8 channels to be added to the unit to accommodate future increases in sludge volumes.
Clean disinfected water and feed, guarantee healthy livestock
BSY

Important factors influencing animal health and performance are their living spaces, drinking water, feeding and medicine.

Challenges:

  • The living spaces (all surfaces and equipment) of livestock should be kept clean and disinfected with environmentally friendly products to ensure healthy animals.
  • The availability of enough high-quality clean water is directly connected with the amount of consumed feed and the performance of the livestock.
  • Contamination of silage must be avoided at all costs.
  • Livestock with low immune systems requires medicine, increasing costs and a lower quality product.

Solution:

The application of INNOWATECH Anolyte® tradename SulafectTM will address all the important areas of animal husbandry.

The installation of an INNOWATECH Aquadron® system can provide sufficient quantities of SulafectTM for the following purposes:

  • Disinfected drinking water.
  • Removal of biofilm in pipes and troughs prevents recontamination because of bacteria regeneration.
  • Decontamination of living spaces through fogging or spraying of SulafectTM
  • Disinfection of the entire water reticulation system that provides residual disinfection capacity at the end point prevents reinfection by wild animals and birds.
  • SulafectTM applied to silage before it is closed off prevents mould formation.
  • SulafectTM is also used very effectively for the treatment of open wounds.

Benefit for Client:

If the drinking water, wash water, silage, living space surface etc. are treated properly with SulafectTM all the activities and life stages of the animals are influenced with advantages as follow:

  • Cleaner disinfected living spaces for the animals.
  • Livestock with stronger immune systems.
  • The growth rate of the animals will be faster (feed conversion).
  • Higher production numbers (e.g., eggs)
  • Lower medicine demand.
  • Lower mortality rate.

The installation of the INNOWATECH Aquadron® system is capital-intensive, but the running costs are very low. The maintenance of the system is also very low as routine checks are mostly all that is required. When using the correct salt grade, the reactor lasts 30 000hrs. With a very short payback period and increased profitability combined with the environmental benefits, this system is truly an asset for a livestock farm

BSY
BSY
BSY

1. Brewer’s spent yeast (BSY) drying

BSY

Animal manure sludge dewatering

As the volume of livestock farming waste increases, the management thereof requires additional attention in that the manure can differ widely in consistency.

The handling of liquid, semi-solid and solid sludges require different handling techniques and equipment to streamline the production, collection, transfer, treatment, storage and utilisation.

Belt and screw presses are currently the most common equipment used to dewater manure sludges. The low capture rate of suspended solids and low separation efficiency with high maintenance costs requires a rethink of these methods.

Challenge:

Currently, dewatering and composting represent the most common methods used to treat and valorize animal manure sludge allowing their utilization as a soil enhancer. The use of dewatered and composted livestock manure is favoured over untreated liquid manure due to its lower volume and smaller particle size, allowing easier handling and facilitating more uniform application.

The Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of the filtrate (wastewater) from the dewatering process must be kept under control. These levels must adhere to environmental regulations when released or reused.

The dewatering of sludge produced from animal manure is currently performed with belt and screw press technology to reduce effluent charges and BOD levels. These presses are found to be problematic because of high maintenance and low efficiency.

Solution:

Sinowatek presents the Fournier Rotary PressTM to address the problems mentioned above, since the characteristics of this technology guarantee low energy consumption and separation efficiency with low maintenance costs.

With a cake dryness around 35% total solids (TS) and a capture rate of more than95%, this technology ensures that the total suspended solids (TSS) in the filtrate is so low that little additional treatment processes for the filtrate are necessary for environmental regulation purposes.

Benefits for the client:

  • The Fournier Rotary PressTM ensures high consistency and good cake dryness using very little electrical power while operating with minimum operator assistance.
  • The higher cake dryness reduces the biological oxygen demand (BOD) of the residual water.
  • The dryer waste is lighter in weight, resulting in lower storage and logistic costs.
  • The Fournier Rotary PressTM is an expandable technology, allowing up to 8 channels to be added to the unit to accommodate future increases in sludge volumes.

2. Brewer’s spent grain

Spent Grain

Brewer’s spent grain

The challenge:

Brewer’s spent grain is most often sold as animal feed due to its properties and content of essential nitrogen-containing nutrients. The high moisture content (80%-90%) of this process waste makes it susceptible to microbial growth in the usual environmental conditions prevailing on farms. Within a few days after production, wet grain can undergo molding and spoiling. Therefore, dewatering and treatment for mold prevention are key factors in the utilization of this process waste.

The solution:

Sinowatek offers the Fournier Rotary PressTM dewatering technology for reducing the moisture content from the spent grain slurry. The rotary press produces a high level of cake dryness and competitive production rates.

Benefit for the client:

  • The dewatering can preserve the BSG and is a key factor in the utilization of the by-product as animal feed.
  • The dryer waste has a lighter weight, resulting in lower transport costs.

3. Spent Kieselguhr slurry

Kieselguhr

Spent Kieselguhr slurry

The challenge:

Kieselguhr (Diatomaceous Earth) is a chalk-like sedimentary mineral derived from fossilized shell-like remains of marine algae called diatoms. The shells are extremely fine and generally range in length from 40 to 160 μm and in width from 2 to 5 μm, the latter being roughly the diameter of most yeast cells. Because of their microscopic size and porous nature, Kieselguhr has been used extensively in the brewing industry as a filtering medium.

Due to the retention of organic material, especially yeast, proteins, and polyphenols by the end of the filtration, cake mass can be increased three times or more. Kieselguhr is a single-use product before being discarded due to its saturation.

The used kieselguhr is a slurry with a water content of 80-90 % creating a process waste that requires environmentally conscience disposal or recycling.

The solution:

Discarded kieselguhr is stored in a tank capable of keeping the slurry (TS around 3%) in suspension before being routed through a Fournier Rotary PressTM where it is dewatered to a cake dryness of 35% TS, ready for disposal or recycling.

Benefit for the client:

  • The Fournier Rotary PressTM ensures high consistency and good cake dryness using very little electrical power while operating unsupervised.
  • The high capture rate of suspended solids reduces the BOD of water going to the wastewater treatment plant.
  • The dryer waste has a lighter weight, resulting in lower transport costs.
  • The Rotary Press is an expandable technology, allowing channels to be added to the unit to accommodate future increases in sludge quantities. Provision can be made to expand a rotary press to 8 channels as demand increases.

4. Bottle washing and filling plant

Beer Bottles

Bottle washing and filling plant

The challenge:

Filling is the last step of the beer brewing process and the first step of the packaging. Sanitary conditions at this stage have a direct impact on the shelf life of bottled beer.

The beer producers endeavour to deliver pure, fresh, tasty, and natural beverages with a long minimum shelf life with no preservatives or additional thermal treatment. Other marketing challenges are the variety of containment materials (glassware, PET, tinplate/aluminium, or the inside coated cardboard boxes) and long distribution paths.

Industrial sanitation (washing and disinfection) of the whole filling line is therefore a top priority in the industrial hygiene of beverage production.

With the conventional cleaning operating technology, the filler is emptied and flushed, disinfected, flushed again and afterwards re-filled. The complete cleaning procedure is therefore very time-consuming, cost-intensive and reduces the plant productivity.

An assortment of chemicals is used for aseptic filling or traditional custom filling. These chemicals cause high wear and corrosion of the filling equipment.

The solution:

Sinowatek offers the INNOWATECH Anolyte® for the disinfection of filler equipment e.g. rinser, filler, bottle washer etc. INNOWATECH Anolyte® tradename SulafectTM is produced electrolytically from a high pure aqueous salt solution on-site with the Aquadron® system.

The disinfectant differs in its physical properties (colour, specific weight, density, viscosity, melting and freezing point) not much from pure water, as it contains only a low concentration of free chlorine. INNOWATECH Anolyte® tradename SulafectTM is a pH neutral, bactericidal, virucidal and fungicidal solution. Because of its low application concentration, it is odourless and tasteless, and, unlike traditional chlorine or chlorine dioxide disinfectants, it is gentle on materials it comes into contact with.

SulafectTM operates at lower concentrations but achieves higher germ-killing rates than conventional disinfectants. It effectively kills legionella, pseudomonads, and other germs, which can be especially prevalent in natural drink products. In addition, while preventing the formation of new ones.

With the bottle shower and SulafectTM system, disinfection of the filler table and surrounding areas is performed continuously. Thus, interruptions of production for in-between cleanings and disinfection can be avoided. The productivity of the plant increases, and water consumption is reduced.

The Aquadron® systems and the active agent Anolyte® (SulafectTM) have already proven reliable in the beer brewing industry for years.

The benefit to the client:

Main advantages of using SulafectTM as a disinfectant:

  • Safe and quick elimination of all germs.
  • Better microbiological control.
  • Complete replacement of all chemicals used for conventional disinfection.
  • Short exposure times (5 min.) for full impact.
  • No re-contamination by rinse water residues.
  • Safe application in the production, filling, and packaging department, with no corrosion on stainless steel and no wear on elastomers.


Main advantages of using the Aquadron® system:

  • Handling and storage of dangerous chemicals or substances is eliminated.
  • Due to the neutral pH no wastewater pollution.
  • Reduction of AOX/COD – values in the wastewater plant
  • Low operation and maintenance costs,
  • For the operation only high-quality salt and electricity are needed.
  • Reduced water consumption due to less cleaning and disinfection flushing.
  • Easy operation with an intuitive user interface.
  • Minimised storage and logistic costs.
  • Uncomplicated integration into existing systems.
  • Short installation and start-up time.
  • With this technology beverages can be filled in their natural form without adding any preservatives.
  • Reduction of operating costs while achieving high hygienic standards.

5. CIP system water treatment

CIP System

CIP system water treatment

The challenge:

In the brewing industry, impeccable hygiene is an essential precondition for making final products of consistently high quality and a long shelf life. A highly efficient CIP process in beer breweries is therefore non-negotiable.

The cleaning and disinfectant agents in conventional CIP stations are expensive and the CIP process requires a lot of time and effort. Materials are subject to rigid safety regulations for storage, handling, and disposal.

These agents kill germs aggressively while impacting the life of pipes and valves. Proactive thermal disinfection, as an alternative to chemicals, is also time-consuming and not always effective.

The solution:

Sinowatek offers the INNOWATECH Anolyte® for the CIP system of a brewery. INNOWATECH Anolyte® tradename SulafectTM is produced electrolytically from a high pure aqueous salt solution on-site with the Aquadron® system.

The disinfectant differs in its physical properties (colour, specific weight, density, viscosity, melting and freezing point) not much from pure water, as it contains a very low concentration of free chlorine. INNOWATECH Anolyte® tradename SulafectTM is pH neutral, bactericidal, virucidal and fungicidal. Because of its low application concentration, it is odourless and tasteless, and, unlike traditional chlorine or chlorine dioxide disinfectants, it is gentle on materials it comes in contact with.

Although SulafectTM operates at lower concentrations it achieves higher germ-killing rates than conventional disinfectants. It effectively kills legionella, pseudomonads, and other germs, which can be especially prevalent in natural drink products.

Using the INNOWATECH Anolyte® (SulafectTM)system in the CIP plant gives rise to high disinfection activity. Individual programme steps such as acid treatment after the main cleaning step or fresh water rinsing after disinfection can be completely eliminated.

The Aquadron® systems and the active agent Anolyte® have already proven reliable in the beer brewing industry over an extended period.

Benefit to the client:

Disinfection of CIP plants by INNOWATECH Anolyte® system replaces aggressive disinfection chemicals and saves water.

  • Reduction of costs for disinfectant.
  • Savings of rinsing water > 30%
  • Improved AOX and CSB values in wastewater.
  • Stack water tanks free of germs
  • Elimination of acid treatment in the cleaning cycle.
  • Elimination of annual tank cleaning against residue film formation.
  • Rinse water tests show no microbiological activity.

Let's talk  about your specific challenges in this field.