Evoqua Water Technologies’ CoMag ballasted clarification system has been chosen by Severn Trent Water and Costain for phosphorus removal at the Finham Sewage Treatment Works located in Coventry, UK.

In October, Severn Trent Water announced that it will invest £35 million for removal of phosphorus at the Finham wastewater treatment plant.

According to Evoqua, Finham will be the first wastewater treatment facility in Europe to get a permanent installation of its ballasted settling technology, which has been used in the US for more than 10 years.

Peter Sugden – programme manager for Severn Trent Water, said: “After evaluating several technologies, we selected the CoMag system because it allows us to cost effectively meet new phosphorus discharge limits.

“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.”

As per Evoqua, the CoMag system improves the clarification process by using the fully inert, iron ore particles magnetite.

The CoMag ballasted clarification system is claimed to settle chemical floc up to 30 times faster than conventional methods of clarification.

Evoqua says that its ballasted clarification system is ideal for communities plagued with challenging wastewater characteristics resulting from industrial discharge or thick populations.

The company believes that Severn Trent Water will be helped by the tertiary CoMag system in bringing down the levels of total suspended solids and phosphorus before the treated water is released into the Sowe River.

High levels of phosphorus in the Sowe River trigger rapid growth of microscopic algae and poor river ecosystems, said Evoqua. To combat these problems and restore the good status of water bodies, the UK Environment Agency’s National Environment Programme (NEP) is asking for low phosphorus limits to be maintained at Finham and several other wastewater treatment facilities.

Evoqua claims that its CoMag system will reduce the amount of phosphorus that the Finham wastewater treatment plant discharges to a significant extent. Besides, it will ensure 0.22 mg/l of total phosphorus (T-P), which is the newly imposed phosphorus limit, said Evoqua.

Simon Radford – UK sales manager of Evoqua’s Municipal Wastewater Treatment business, said: “For Finham, the CoMag system has been designed to achieve phosphorus limits of less than 0.18 mg/l T-P.

“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.”

Currently, the Finham wastewater treatment facility processes 1,597 litres of wastewater on average every second.

  Costain, Coventry, Evoqua Water Technologies, Finham Sewage Treatment Works, United Kingdom, Wastewater treatment facility