A FAB REACTOR IN ELECTRONICS CITY

It is not for want of technically qualified and competent help that Companies fail in some undertakings.  For instance, the specialist water treatment companies in India are extremely competent in water treatment ( which calls for standard plants), but fail miserably when they dabble in wastewater treatment. ( See my earlier article : Why Zermatt fails in Wastewater Treatment ). The failure is attributable in large part to the mental makeup of the company and their culture which confers pride of place to Salesmanship over technical competence and merit.

Every wastewater is different, and so is every wastewater treatment plant.  That is where a small company like Ecotech will score over the giants who are not equipped to design and engineer treatment plants on a case by case basis.

On that happy note, let me wish you and your family a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

A FAB REACTOR IN ELECTRONICS CITY

Regular readers of this Adda/ Blog will no doubt vouch for my aversion to Water Treatment Companies dabbling in Wastewater Treatment : more so, when they use fancy acronyms for obscure, untried, untested and failed technologies for selling to unsuspecting and gullible clients. Acronyms like FAB, SAFF, SBBR, MBBR, #@&?,  etc.  Neither the acronyms, nor the technologies are pariahs per se. These technologies are used extensively in Chemical process plants, designed by punctilious and conscientious Chemical Engineers ( I claim to be one of that tribe).  It is only when a “Salesman” designs these plants, that gets my goat : designed with the sole objective of making a SALE – performance be damned.

Water Treatment Companies are full of Salesmen, who will only sell and scoot.

All these fancy technologies claim to have lesser detention times of the wastewater in the system and consequently smaller footprints of the plants, and lesser energy consumption.  On all counts, these claims are based on false technical premises : and to top it all, the plants will not work.

I have three fundamental technical objections to these plants working on short contact times to treat wastewater.

1. Short aeration contact times necessarily call for a primary sedimentation stage.

None of these #@&?  plants sold by these Water Treatment Companies have this feature.  A pioneering researcher and leading light in biofilm technology, Prof. Hallvard Odegaard of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology clearly and unequivocally prescribes primary sedimentation to remove the sewage primary solids that may not be fully digested in the bioreactor, given the short contact times. 

Sewage primary solids are difficult to handle in small treatment plants.  They are slimy, do not thicken or dewater easily.  Disposal of primary solids is an onerous task.

2. Without primary sedimentation, the primary solids slip through the Bioreactor, and appear in the secondary settler.

As described above, primary solids are difficult to dispose off without extensive conditioning, which is again missed out in the #@&? Plants sold by the Water Treatment Companies.  Worse !  these companies sell plate/ tube settlers for the secondary settling stage, which  just do not work for biomass.  Plate and tube settlers are fine only for chemical sludges in Water Treatment Plants : One cannot blindly transfer technology from Water Treatment to Wastewater treatment.

3. There is an inherent contradiction between the Kinetics of BOD removal and limitations imposed on transfer rate of Oxygen from the gas phase to the liquid phase in the Bioreactor.

A high concentration of biomass in the #@&? plant and the desired metabolic rate call for very high Oxygen transfer rates, which is difficult to achieve under the engineering design offered by these Water Treatment Companies.

Because of the obstructive regime within the bioreactor, only the less efficient Coarse Bubble Diffusers may be used for aeration, instead of the highly efficient Fine pore membrane diffusrs.  Unless pure Oxygen is employed, Oxygen transfer rates and hence availability of Oxygen in the Mixed liquor will be the limiting factor, which will adversely affect BOD removal rates and efficiencies.

There are of course other irritants in using these #@&? technologies foisted by the Water Treatment Companies :  for instance maintenance and repairs of the reactor in case of malfunctioning of the diffusers.  But then, I have never known these companies to be overly concerned about after sales service.  As I have said before, sell and scoot is their motto.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                December 30, 2011

Footnote :

I will cite just two classic cases of #@&? Plants sold by Zermatt, which failed miserably.

1. Zermatt sold a FAB reactor ( or was it SAFF ? eminently forgettable in any case) to a Software major in Electronics City. Forget the design, God-awful Engineering of this plant warrants a full page article in itself.  I refused to take over this plant for operation & maintenance citing above reasons.  Taking umbrage at my pigheadedness, Zermatt decided to run the plant themselves.  Even after three months of tinkering and tankering   ( tankering out the untreated sewage), Zermatt could not demonstrate satisfactory performance.  Accepting defeat, very large heartedly, Zermatt put up an additional #@&? reactor free of cost.  I still refused to take over the plant, citing the other design and engineering deficiencies.

Needless to say, my stand did not go down well also with the Project team of the Client who approved the Design and Engineering of the wretched plant :  Worse was yet to come.  In a kneejerk, and short sighted response, and to avoid such embarrassment, the Project team made it a policy to entrust O&M of the plants in future for one year to the original vendor of the plant.  This strategy ensures that all major deficiencies and defects in the plant can be effectively swept under the carpet and kept under wraps for at least a year to save face for the project team as well as the vendor.  After that, who cares ?  It was a running plant after all.

I harbour no hard feelings.  I put it down to Client Prerogative.^##  The entire  #@&? Plant was ultimately as good as scrapped : no tears were shed.

2. ITC’s Leaf tobacco Division ( ILTD) engaged me as Consultant to design treatment plants for their units at Anaparthi and Chirala in Andhra Pradesh.  Citing Client Prerogative ^##, my designs were rejected by the Engineering Manager in Chirala in favour of Zermatt’s #@&?  technology.  Not for the first time a Salesman had done a good Buying job as well.  I promptly resigned from this consultancy assignment.  The  #@&?  Plant, I understand never worked.

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Client Prerogative  ( from the album ‘ Don’t Be Cruel ‘ )

(Bobby Brown, Gene Griffin, Teddy Riley)

Everybody's talking all this stuff about me,

They all think I'm im-press-ive,

I'll take a small commission,

To help sway my decision,

That's client prerogative.

They say I'm lazy,

I really don't care,

That's client prerogative.

They say I'm abusive,

But they can go and fuck themselves in the clackypipe,

Getting paid is how I live.          

.

It's client prerogative,

I can do what I wanna do,

And if you're giving out 'gifts',

I'll certainly take a few.

.

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