Severn Trent Water and its design and construction partner Costain Ltd have selected Evoqua Water Technologies’ CoMag® ballasted clarification system to reduce phosphorus at the Finham Sewage Treatment Works in Coventry, UK.
Finham will be Europe’s first wastewater treatment plant with a permanent installation of Evoqua’s ballasted settling technology.
“After evaluating several technologies, we selected the CoMag system because it allows us to cost effectively meet new phosphorus discharge limits,” said Peter Sugden, programme manager for Severn Trent Water. “We are saving a significant amount of money by reusing existing but redundant sand filter infrastructure as the reaction tanks. We are also saving space by using custom-designed clarifiers from Evoqua that can process wastewater ten times faster than a conventional clarifier, thanks to the CoMag system.”
The CoMag system uses magnetite – fully inert, iron ore particles – to enhance the clarification process. The system settles chemical floc up to 30 times faster than conventional clarification.
“For Finham, the CoMag system has been designed to achieve phosphorus limits of less than 0.18 mg/l T-P,” said Simon Radford, UK sales manager of Evoqua’s Municipal Wastewater Treatment business. “This capability gives Severn Trent the confidence that the CoMag system can meet the 0.22 mg/l limit in the future, even if there are increased demands on the facility from population growth or greater amounts of industrial discharge.”