3rd March, 2017.- The European project Life Celsius has been present today at the Innovative Solutions for Water Management Fair (SIGA 2017), directed by its Manager, María del Mar Micó, a chemical engineer from Acciona Agua, who has offered the attendees full details on the project development, as well as all the achievements made so far.

Life Celsius is developed in a pilot plant installed in the Estación Depuradora de Aguas Residuales (EDAR) [Waste Water Treatment Plant] of Archena (Murcia) and its objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of a water treatment system for warm climates with low energy consumption (60 percent less) and reduction of C02 emissions.
The facility, which is responsible for the removal of nitrogenous substances from the wastewater, uses the effluent from the treatment plant, whose temperature is adequate to maintain the processes without heat, while minimizing aeration by using bacteria that do not require oxygen supply. Both processes result in significant energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions.
Acciona Agua expects that at the end of the project, the results obtained can be extrapolated to a real wastewater flow to evaluate the feasibility of the implementation of this technology at a real scale.
The resulting water of the entire process will be suitable for its discharge to the river Segura, since the reduction of organic matter and nitrogen compounds will serve to mitigate the problems of hypoxia and eutrophication.
First conclusions
During her presentation, María del Mar Micó has exposed the basic objectives of the project and its design stages developed so far, explaining as well that “partial nitrification works autonomously, aeration control follows the normal process and the results observed are positive”.
In addition, “the biofilter anammox has already reached the total elimination of added nitrogen” for its experimentation, with an inflow of 20 litres per hour and backwash every 48 hours for 100 seconds..
The hydrolytic and acidogenic activities “are visible throughout the operation” and the “membrane system has been able” to maintain a stable flow of 30-35 LMH (liters per hour per square meter of membrane), and “the better the membrane works, the greater the flow that passes through the membrane and more LMH are measured”.
In the coming months, “we will see the effect of the aeration process control; reactors will be stabilized and we will try to improve the quality of the effluent output” Then, the water plant will be functioning, for a year, in a stable way, under optimum conditions, to ensure the most refined processes.
Life Celsius
Life Celsius project has the contribution of Life program, a financial instrument of the European Community; it is coordinated by Acciona Agua and EFE News Agency collaborates in this project.
Traducción: Carmen Gilson