The Lighthouse Project VARGA (Water Resource Recovery Facility) is a full scale project that will serve as an export window for demonstrating Danish expertise within water and environmental technologies in the wastewater sector.
The future treatment plant
BIOFOS with the support from MUDP and collaboration with ARC, EnviDan, Unisense and DTU Environment, is starting a lighthouse project that will create the future sewage treatment plant. The future wastewater treatment plant except for cleaning the water, will utilize the resources of waste products for the production of environmentally friendly energy from biogas while providing a valuable residual product, which can be used as fertilizer.
WP 01
Carbon harvesting by prefiltration, dewatering of primary sludge and online control of carbon will be used for prioritizing the organic matter for energy production without influencing the other plant processes.
WP 02
Nitrous oxide minimization by online control of its emissions and control of nitrogen removal.
WP 03
Circular economy for source-sorted organic waste (KOD) and assessment of fertilizer value based on field trials.
WP 04
Nutrient salts removal by establishing anammox plant and demonstration of extraction of phosphorus from sludge ash by electrodialysis technique.
WP 05
Release of raw material to full scale (6000 m3) gasification of biopulp from KOD
WP 06
Separate anaerobic digestion of biopulp from KOD for optimization and upgrading of biogas, as well as assessment of bioaugmentation and quality of fertilizer.
A major challenge is that the existing wastewater treatment plants are designed based on a desire to clean a given quality, without a greater focus on energy consumption, CO2 emissions and recycling of residual products. The overall objective of the project is to transform a conventional wastewater treatment plant into a recycling plant (Water Resource Recovery Facility). This will be demonstrated in full scale at Avedøre wastewater treatment plant.
The following new technologies are part of the overall concept:
- Better distribution of organic matter (carbon harvest) by fine filtration on raw wastewater and concentration of primary sludge. This increases biogas production and reduces energy consumption for water purification
- Reduced greenhouse gas effect from aeration processes with control for minimization of nitrous oxide emissions
- Phosphorus recovery from waste water and / or sludge
- Energy optimization of nitrogen removal in water from dewatering of digested sludge
- More energy-saving or upgraded biogas by the addition of hydrogen
- Increased biogas production from source-sorted organic waste and use of residual product in ecological farming
Collaborators
BIOFOS
BIOFOS is Denmark’s largest wastewater company. We clean the wastewater for 1.2 million. inhabitants in the metropolitan area at our three sewage treatment plants Lynette, Avedøre and Damhusåen.
EnviDan A/S
EnviDan is one of Denmark’s leading consulting engineering companies specializing in wastewater and drainage technique, climate adaptation, water supply, biogas and informatics. EnviDan has continuous focus on development and has a total of 220 skilled and committed employees distributed in offices in Kastrup, Lyngby, Silkeborg, Aarhus, Aalborg, as well as in Sweden and Norway.
Unisense Environment A/S
Unisense is a Danish research-based company with core competencies within microscale sensor technology. We provide state of the art microsensors and complete measurement systems within environmental and medical research. Unisense Environment produces the world’s unique nitrous oxide gas sensor for direct measurement of nitrous oxide in wastewater.
Amager Ressource Center ARC
ARC is an integral part of the city’s closed loop recycling system. Our vision is to contribute to a better environment and climate for future generations. We manage the waste resource in such a way that we return materials, electricity and district heating to the citizens and the city.
DTU Miljø
DTU Environment is one of the largest university units focusing on water, environmental technology and sustainability in Europe. The institute is working to develop new environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies as well as to convey this knowledge to society and new generations of engineers.
MUDP
MUDP supports the project with 19,012,949 DKK of a total budget of 84,321,244 DKK. Further information about MUDP and support for projects can be found at this link http://ecoinnovation.dk/
“ARC is looking forward to an exciting collaboration to utilize the city’s organic waste for biogas and fertilizer products for agriculture. We will among others establish a dialogue with farmers in Zealand to exploit the nutrients from the city’s organic waste. It is a whole new approach and extremely important to meet the demands of the resource strategy. ”
Ida Leisner
“We must turn the whole mindset so that we are thinking about a purification plant as a resource plant. The project provides a unique opportunity for, that Denmark can appear as a pioneer country, where we both clean water and exploit the resources in the wastewater. ”
Dines Thornberg
“We see major export perspectives in the Lighthouse project VARGA within our consultancy such as CO2- neutral cleaning, circular economy, upgrading of biogas, advanced online control as well as deliveries of Salsnes filters for optimizing carbon harvesting and concentration of primary sludge.”
Jeanette Agertved Madsen
Contact
If you have any questions about the VARGA project, you can contact Project Manager Nick Ahrensberg at +45 36 34 38 52 or varga@biofos.dk. You can also use the contact form here.
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