We are FCC - Nº4

The initial phase of the ELAN® pi- lot project at Thames Water, coor- dinated by the Europe Zone branch office and Aqualia’s R+D+i Depart- ment, will last six months, compe- ting with the leading companies in the industry which offer a similar process. The objective of this initia- The granular ELAN®-ANAMMOX biomass at the pilot facility Exterior appearance of the building that houses the buried homogenization tank and the two ELAN® reactors of which the project consists. tive is to implement this technology I a large number of WWTPs ma- naged by the British company and have Aqualia become a reference technological partner. ELAN® anaerobic digestion of sludge at the Oxford WWTM which increases the production of biogas in addition to the production of biosolid materials that can be used for agricultural purposes. The hydrolysis process also increases the treatment ca- pacity making the Oxford WWTP a strategic centre for handling sludge from the small treatment plants in the region. This technology has already been installed in Spain at the Guillarei (Pontevedra) WWTP and at the Friscos canning facility in Catoria (Pontevedra). Two other units are being built at Chiclana de la Fronte- ra (Cadiz) and at the Ecopark in the Barcelona metropolitan area. After the prototype is installed at the Oxford WWTP, Thames Water will compare Aqualia’s ELAN® sys- tem with two other processes: Veo- lia’s ANITAMMOX and Grontmij’s (now SWECO) ANITAMMOX before selecting the one that will finally be installed in most of the anaerobic digestion centres that it manages. I N N O V A T I O N I N N O V A T I O N 47