Building a new wastewater treatment plant, or increasing an existing one, often turns out to be difficult, whether it is for cost, available space or construction time reasons. Municipalities being faced with this kind of problems have to consider alternative solutions.

The Municipality of Ehekirchen in Germany plans in the short term to extend its municipal wastewater treatment plant. During the feasibility phase and the research of technical solutions, the Municipality had the opportunity to test the ExSep®, an Epuramat’s patented technology for solid-liquid separation. In view of the efficiency of these trials made with an ExSep® 1000 (1-meter diameter), the municipality has decided to integrate this primary treatment technology together with a sludge dewatering unit in its wastewater treatment plant expansion project.

For this purpose, Epuramat implemented and commissioned a wastewater primary treatment system, composed of two ExSep® 2000 (2-meter diameter) as pre-treatment and a sludge dewatering unit using no chemicals fully integrated in a 20 ft standard container. The complete system is designed for remote control. This compact and modular solution replaces conventional sedimentation tanks as well as fat and sand traps, and allows treating up to 40 m³ per hour.

This system will be used for a one-year trial period in cooperation with water authority in charge (Wasserwirtschaftsamt), at the end of which it is planned to be implemented as a permanent pre-treatment solution for the new wastewater treatment plant. Thanks to this highly efficient primary treatment system, the subsequent biological treatment steps will be relieved and will thus be designed more compactly, resulting in significant savings for the Municipality of Ehekirchen, both in terms of construction and operation costs.