Aquaplus NV services

Based on its experience gathered as principal commissioner in Flanders for projects in the sanitation sector for the last 15 years, Aquafin established a large expertise in the project engineering sector. To execute the annual investment programme of 250 million euros, a lot of specifications, procedures and special directives were prepared. They have to ensure the investments are realised according to the set out time schedule, budget and quality standards. Aquaplus doesn`t only carry out standard projects, but all sorts of projects with difficult preconditions. Our engineers have experience with large and small-scale plants, realised as greenfield constructions or an upgrade of existing plants. They are always closely involved in the delivery and start-up of the plants they have designed.

Project auditing with Aquaplus offers financial and technical audits of your existing wastewater treatment plant, and of all your documents related to wastewater treatment investments: audit and optimisation of existing WWTPs and operational practice, audit and second opnion of predesign/design, treatment concepts, sizing,... or audit of ISPA-documents (EU accession countries).

Aquafin developed a zoning methodology to define how sanitation is best organised in areas where there currently are no water treatment facilities. Our zone planning determines per treatment area or per municipal area for which percentage of houses the pollution load can best be connected to the (existing) collective sewer system and transported to a treatment plant. The zoning plan provides a solution without infringing on the local authorities’ autonomy and wishes.

Aquafin also developed a methodology for planning investments in wastewater treatment infrastructure. Based on its predicted ecological return, the priority of each project is calculated. The master plan provides per treatment area an overview of all necessary remediation projects to achieve the required degree of treatment at minimal cost. The necessary projects are ordered in descending order of ecological profit. The prioritising of the projects is done with a ‘priority model for treatment infrastructure’. This model determines the best project order of priority for achieving the maximum ecological return, taking into account the available budgetary resources.

Related to the design of sewer systems, Aquafin developed different approaches to conceive an optimum hydraulic solution, and to minimise possible flooding problems and reduce the ecological burden to a minimum. Considering the fact that sewer systems are linked with hydraulic solutions, preferentially chosen by the client, Aquafin developed the Aquagis module. The tool defines a data management system that ensures data are managed and visualised in an appropriate environment, using compatible formats. As a logical benefit and implementation of a hydraulic calculation tool (such as Infoworks) Aquafin developed for this purpose a full integrated Hydronaut procedure. This manual covers all steps and issues to be followed throughout modelling exercises of sewer systems.

For any wastewater treatment problem - industrial or municipal - Aquaplus offers a solution. Mother company Aquafin has over 220 WWTP’s operational. Therefore, the company has a  broad experience in both design and operation of wastewater treatment plants. In-house feedback from operational side to engineering and R&D leads to continuous improvements and better solutions from the view point of the end-user.

From its establishment until the end of 2007, Aquafin built about 116 new treatment plants and renovated about 61 plants (most upgrades for nutrient removal). Today, Aquafin operates about 220 treatment plants in Flanders. This resulted in a large theoretical as well as hands-on experience. Aquafin has developed a modular renovation design procedure. Starting from a rather straight-forward approach, there is the possibility to gradually build up to an advanced approach using extra measuring campaigns, lab- and pilot tests, dynamic modelling and risk assessment calculations. The more complex approach using state-of-the-art technologies and procedures leads to a more accurate (critic) design and more certainty, and can therefore result in significant cost savings.

By the end of 2007 Flanders produced about 85.000 tons DS/year of wastewater sludge. Special care is taken for implementing environmentally friendly sludge processing and final disposal routes. This relates among others to reduction of sludge production, improvement of sludge dewatering, addressing causes of sludge pollution, prediction of the variation in sludge production, optimisation of sludge digestion, energy recovery and reuse options.

Over the past 10 years part of the activities of the Aquafin R&D department deal with comparative and pilot research on advanced wastewater treatment technologies. This includes membrane filtration (MBR and tertiary), sand filtration, reverse osmosis, discfilters… During the past ten to twenty years, the availability, efficiency and reliability of membrane systems have significantly increased. At the same time the capital and operational costs of these systems have declined considerably.