Separator or membrane filter effluent treatment?

When Schering Plough in Avondale were looking to resolve a process effluent problem, Westfalia Separator stepped in and suggested they looked at a separator as well as membrane filtration technology

When Schering Plough in Avondale (Ireland) were looking to resolve a process effluent problem, Westfalia Separator stepped in and suggested they looked at a separator as well as membrane filtration technology.

Following successful trials an SC 150 separator was installed and after a year's operation another identical unit has been installed.

Schering Plough is a major international pharmaceutical company well known for many products including the Hepatitis-C active substance Intron and has sales in more than 125 countries world wide.

The Avondale plant, a major facility employing 400 people, already uses Westfalia separators in its processes but this was the first time a separator had been used on the process effluent side.

To meet the defined limit of 100mgs/l of solids in the effluent plant discharge meant separation of difficult to remove solids from biological activated sludge.

Standard membrane filtration technology required frequent flushing and cleaning to remove the solids fouling the process and consistent, reliable results were not achievable without significantly oversizing the process with consequent high investment cost.

The Westfalia SC150 separator however achieved consistently stable results meeting 100mgs/l on a 40M3/hr feedrate and polished up the effluent from pre-clarifiers such that the clarified phase could be discharged directly into a lake.

Disk stack separators work well in effluent clarification where the solids concentration is lower and the particle size is small.

They are less expensive and less complicated than membrane filtration, which is what was found at Schering Plough in Avondale and is an example of applying well proven technologies in different fields.

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