Taylor, Duncan

Duncan is a technical director at GHD Pty Ltd with 20 years' experience in the water industry, working both in Australia and overseas. He is the leader of our wastewater treatment business in our Sydney operation and has experience in all aspects wastewater treatment asset delivery. Duncan has led major wastewater projects for Clients across Australia, from strategic planning to detailed design and commissioning. Duncan has published a number of technical papers, was an invited lecturer at Queensland University of Technology and has worked collaboratively with Universities to solve practical problems within industry. Duncan also has significant wastewater treatment operations experience, gained when working for water utilities in Australia and the UK.

Titles from this speaker

What's Up Down Under? Australian Experience with Recuperative Thickening

Abstract

The capacity of the mesophilic anaerobic digestion process in a municipal water resource recovery facility (WRRF) is typically limited by the need to maintain a minimum solids retention time (SRT). In conventional applications, the hydraulic retention time (HRT) is essentially equal to the SRT. Recuperative thickening allows the SRT and HRT to be decoupled, thus enabling the digestion process to be intensified. Recuperative thickening has been implemented at a number of large wastewater treatment plants in Australia, for the purpose of increasing process capacity and improving final biosolids quality. For new digesters, recuperative thickening may be used to significantly reduce the digester volume, resulting in substantial capital savings. In existing digester systems, recuperative thickening may be used to either increase capacity, or to increase the operating SRT. A number of Australian facilities have used recuperative thickening to operate at higher SRT, often as high as 30 days. Benefits of operating at high SRT include improved volatile solids destruction, increased biogas production and reduced cake odor potential. Successful implementation of recuperative thickening requires careful consideration of the impact of thickening the digester solids on sludge rheology, which in turn determines how various equipment associated with digestion, such as heat exchangers, mixers and pumps, are affected by recuperative thickening. These challenges are addressed by determining site-specific rheological properties of the digester sludge. Once these properties are known, the designer can determine their impact on the equipment, and provide upgrades as required.

SpeakerTaylor, Duncan

Presentation time

13:00:00

13:20:00

Session time

13:00:00

14:00:00

SessionMore Than Just the Same Old Mesophilic: Innovations in Advanced Digestion

Session number608

TopicBiosolids and Residuals

Author(s)

D. TaylorD. Taylor