Bubble Tubing® in a Treatment Basin

Many Customers want to Profitably and Efficiently Treat their Leachate, Wastewater and other Effluent Collection Ponds. Here are some examples.

Case #1: A manufacturer must treat wood residues such as weed chips, sawdust, fibers and other by-products.

Two watersheds collect surface water from the treatment areas. This water must be treated before being released into the environment in order to comply with environmental standards. Even if the customer already aerates his ponds with surface injectors, they are looking for new technologies that allow them to increase the energy efficiency of the system, reduce the maintenance of diffusers and compressors and ultimately, to have the guarantee to get better treatment results.

In the first basin, a 15 HP (11.2 kW) surface hydro-mixer was replaced by a 10 HP (7.5 kW) rotary vane compressor and linear Bubble Tubing® diffusers installed at the bottom of the basin. This eliminated the presence of machinery and electricity in the water. The result was a high level of oxygen in the water allowing the maintenance of environmental standards and significant energy savings. The second basin used an expensive floating solar aeration system. This proved ineffective most of the time and was replaced by several lines of Bubble Tubing® and a rotary claw compressor adapted specifically to the needs. The customer is now very satisfied with the performance obtained and the low energy costs, thanks to this innovative solution. These results had never been achieved with its previous systems. Being geographically located near our offices, the customer benefits from our maintenance and repair service.

Case #2:  A company specializing in the recovery of solid waste from the pulp and paper industry and the recovery of composting waste necessary for the control and management of its runoff and infiltration leachate.

Their site presents a series of watersheds that end with anaerobic treatment and artificial filter marshes. The original diffusers were outdated, expensive to operate, and did not perform as expected. In order to improve all of their operations, they wanted to reduce their energy consumption costs, increase oxygen transfer to improve water quality and enable better treatment efficiency in existing basins. They also had a particular problem with noise from the facilities which affected the neighbors.

They replaced their ineffective large bubble diffusers with Bubble Tubing®’s fine micro-bubbles allowing for a higher oxygen transfer rate in the water.

They also changed their inefficient and noisy compressor. They opted for a piston compressor for each air line. Energy consumption and noise have thus been greatly reduced. In addition, they have increased the reliability of the entire system, now composed of several compressors, and there is no longer the possibility of a complete shutdown which could be harmful for the bacterial flora which decontaminates the rainwater. Maintaining this micro-organism activity requires a minimum dissolved oxygen level of 2 mg / l  and it is therefore important to consider this for any site manager confronted with contaminated water.

BubbleTubing® requires very little maintenance. When needed, maintenance is easy to achieve since it does not require the removal of the diffusers from the water. After several years of efficient aeration with our Bubble Tubing®, the managers are satisfied with the results. Energy consumption has been reduced while increasing the speed at which the diffusers can handle winter runoff, until the warmer summer temperatures can help reduce nutrient loads.

Case #3: This international client is located in Oman in the Middle East. The mandate? Aeration of a municipal leachate pond to control odors.

The customer was looking for an aeration solution with Bubble Tubing® for an irregularly shaped leach pond. The propellers of their existing surface aerators created a dense, thick foam on the surface which prevented the transfer of oxygen to the water. In addition, the strong evaporation of the water combined with the inefficiency of the aerators also created very significant odor problems at the periphery of the basin. The client’s engineers were looking for an alternative solution that would create less turbulence in the water, while still providing a high oxygen supply to keep the leachate pond aerobic.

Several lines of Bubble Tubing® were installed in parallel in the basin. The foam produced with the previous system was significantly reduced and the odor problem eliminated. For best results, we recommended the compressor type, model and distributor closest to Oman to ensure that the diffusers are supplied with the correct air/pressure ratio according to our established standards. The project was completed in 2013.

Case #4: Municipal waste plant that require an efficient aeration system to manage the quality of the water collected at the treatment plant.

An aeration system using Bubble Tubing® had been proposed as a solution to a town in the Eastern Townships. The aeration system had been compared to others by an independent engineering firm commissioned by the municipality. They needed to determine the best option between the Bubble Tubing®, Atara and Biolac systems.  The Bubble Tubing® system came out way above the other two systems offered. Results obtained since then demonstrate it’s impressive performance and is comparable to the results expected and previously evaluated.

Case #5: An inter-municipal solid waste management board was looking for new technology to aerate the leachate from a landfill.

They wanted to change their surface air injectors which were easily damaged by ice in winter. They were difficult to repair, insufficient to provide the required oxygen level, and expensive to operate. With this system, it was not possible to meet environmental standards. In addition, the site wanted to expand.  A solution had to be found.

The supervisor in charge of managing the landfill determined that there had to be a more efficient way to aerate the ponds. The people from the Inter-municipal Solid Waste Management Board contacted us to install a bottom ventilation system using Bubble tubing® and after completing their tests, eventually replaced all of their surface aerators to exclusively use the aeration system with Bubble Tubing®. Their electricity consumption has dropped drastically – by more than 90%. Their discharge standards are now being met, which has enabled them to increase their operations and as well, their income.