Testing wastewater for its revenue potential

The wastewater treatment design team of CPG NZ Ltd (formerly Waste Solutions) pioneered the design and value engineering of industrial and agricultural anaerobic wastewater treatment by introducing the novel high rate Covered In Ground Anaerobic Reactor (CIGAR) digester system. These CIGARTM systems match existing tank based digester systems in performance and biogas yield but at approx. 1/3rd of the construction and operating costs for the comparable scale. The first CIGARTM system was commissioned in 2003 and since then more than 30 full scale systems have been designed/installed in SE Asia and South America with a 100 % success record. All these applications are commercially successful and typically achieve payback periods of less than 2 years when the biogas is used as quality fuel for factory boiler and power production plan (genset) operation. To be able to confirm the expected financial and technical performance of biogas digester projects at the project development step it is critical to offer the investors the use of credible, proven, robust and accurate test and analysis methodology for (A), for the biogas yield; (B), the achievable wastewater treatment efficiency; and (C), the typical digester sludge stability (metabolic activity) under realistic digester operation conditions. Here we present an overview of the innovative testing and process demonstration methodology and the systems that CPG have developed in the last decade to determine the biogas production potential and biogas process stability for a wide range of solid and liquid industrial waste materials.