Contact
Dr. Sebastian Reinecke
Head Water and Environmental Technology
Head of department
s.reinecke
hzdr.de
Phone: +49 351 260 2320
Water and Environmental Technologies
Removal and treatment of municipal and industrial waste water is of great importance to reduce pollution and eutrophication of natural watercourses and is part of a sustainable use of water resources. The waste water chain comprises of the water consumer, the sewer system and the waste water treatment plant where the clean effluent water reaches the surface watercourse.
The municipal waste water on its own is treated in 10.000 waste water treatment plants with an annual energy consumption of 4.400 GWh in Germany, which is 20% of the energy consumption in the municipal sector. Thereof up to 80% are needed for the biological cleaning in the activated sludge basins.
Activated sludge basins are the core of the waste water treatment plants. Carbon and ammonia compounds are degraded in aerated zones by heterotrophic bacteria under usage of oxygen. Sufficient supply of oxygen to the microorganisms is performed by gas dispersion in the basins. The gas dispersion also assures mixing of the multiphase fluid, i.e. reduction of concentration gradients and suspension of the sludge. Therefore, special diffusers are applied at the bottom of the basins which have an enormous energy demand. Often additional stirring units are applied to support mixing of the activated sludge and gas dispersion, which need additional energy. Therefore, the process performance and the energy efficiency of waste water treatment plants are mainly determined by the activated sludge process.
The need for energy efficient processes is further accompanied by the call for removal oven emerging contaminants, namely pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, complexing agents, PFAS etc., that cannot be removed by the activated sludge process and are toxic to the environment. These need special treatment since they cannot be provided in a sustainable way by envisaged technologies such as ozonation and adsorption by activated carbon.
Broadening the view to the whole urban water and wastewater infrastructure, there is more potential for improvement of the energy efficiency and the resulting contamination of the environment. Combined sewer overflows into rivers and fluctuations of pollutant loads at the wastewater treatment plant inlet can be controlled and reduced by intelligent data driven control strategies that consider information on the fluctuating boundary conditions, namely weather, pollutant loads, storage capacities, etc. Furthermore, there is potential for coupling of the energy and the water sector to support stable operation of the energy system of the future. Flexible operation of wastewater infrastructure as a whole can be achieved through integration of Power-To-X technologies with intermediate energy/heat/gas storage units embedded into a demand site management that considers the aforementioned fluctuations as well as the ones at the energy market.
Our Research and Development activities:
We offer strong expertise in understanding and optimizing fluid dynamic processes that are central to energy and resource efficiency in wastewater treatment. Oxygen transfer in activated sludge tanks, methane bubble formation in anaerobic digesters and mixing of multiphase flows by propeller systems are all examples of fluid dynamic challenges addressed by our team of experts. Our main current main activities are:
Efficient Aeration Technology
Advanced process characterization
Advanced oxidation processes
Energy-water sector coupling
Technology development and transfer in Innovation Lab CLEWATEC:
Our Helmholtz Innovation Lab for Clean Water Technology CLEWATEC (https://www.clewatec.de) utilizes the premises and unique research infrastructure of the Institute of Fluid Dynamics at HZDR to provide R&D services in the context of bilateral cooperation or third party funded projects in collaboration with industrial and research partners.
We are happy to get to know more on your challenges on these or other fluid dynamic related subjects. Feel free to contact us to see how we can support you!
Strategic Partners:
Academic:
Hamburg University of Technology
University of Technology Dresden
Institute for Automation and Communication ifak e. V.
Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems
Environmental Research Center – UFZ
Federal University of Campina Grande
Industry:
Air Liquide
Stadtentwässerung Dresden GmbH
Berliner Wasserbetriebe
Hydrograv GmbH
KSB Service GmbH
PreSens GmbH
Propeller Technik Maier GmbH
Infineon Technologies Dresden GmbH & Co. KG
