Aquaplus NV services

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.