Emission’s Under Control as Global Industry Leaders Join Forces

The Middle East is fertile ground for the deployment of advanced emission control technologies designed to ensure that key industries can offer improved environmental protection whilst sustaining economic growth. With the region’s fragile environment increasingly under stress due to climate change and population growth, preventing future problems is now at the top of the agenda for politicians, industry and regulators alike.

A Powerful Partnership

It’s an in-depth understanding of the Region’s unique challenges that underpins an ambitious new partnership dedicated to resolving some of today’s most pressing environmental challenges through the provision of advanced Biological Emission Control Systems.

The new partnership sees leading odour control company Azzuro join forces with ACWA, the well-established provider of air pollution control, water and wastewater solutions with the strategic objective to promote and deliver Biological Emission Control Systems in the Region.  

This strengthened relationship is a logical next move with Azzuro’s highly innovative and efficient biological technologies for the treatment of odorous air at municipal wastewater plants and industrial sites complementing ACWA’s existing product range.

But more than this, from a customer point of view the partnership is a ‘dream ticket’ combining the benefits of Azzuro’s global technology with the security of ACWA’s well established local presence in the Region to support engineering, installation and after sales.

ACWA Group managing director Gary Jackson is delighted with the agreement, saying: “This will bring something that no other odour control company has in the Region: World-class proven technology backed by strong on-the-ground project co-ordination to support projects locally with fabrication, customs clearance, transportation, installation, local communication and after sales.”

ACWA has built a well founded reputation in the Middle East, with high-profile projects that include designing and delivering the desalination systems for the prestigious Palm Jumeirah development, and providing an advanced submerged membrane bioreactor wastewater treatment plant in Muscat, Oman, one of the largest in the world. The ACWA Group have delivered odour control solutions to both the municipal and industrial wastewater sector and the oil, gas and petrochemical industries across the Region.

Likewise, Azzuro has a formidable track record as a global technology leader in odour-removing biological air scrubbers for the municipal and industrial wastewater sectors and the chemical, F&B and petrochemical industries. Company CEO/President Bonno Koers explains: “We first introduced this technology in the early 1990s, and we have been able to continuously improve the technology culminating in today’s refined high performance solution. Interpretation of field data and new developments in our media have lead to unparalleled results in a broad range of applications. We have realised more than 350 systems worldwide. Our latest project in the Middle East is the enhancement works pre-aeration OCU at the Ajman wastewater treatment plant, which is already showing exceptional results.”

Ajman Project

The Ajman Sewage (Private) Company Limited (ASPCL) in the UAE has recently adopted Azzuro’s acclaimed odour control technology. The original biological odour control system had been installed to treat extremely high loadings of hydrogen sulphide (H2S), but was unable to process the high concentrations involved. This meant that significant deposits of elemental sulphur developed on the synthetic media, causing it to constantly clog and reducing the system’s performance.

The operator had been forced to routinely open each of the eight reactors, remove the media packs and undertake a tedious cleaning process, an inefficient process that wasted thousands of man-hours a year. The utility therefore decided that a more capable process with higher quality media was required.

Where previously eight reactors have not been able to treat those loadings, impressively Azzuro only needs six reactors, equipped with its Spacious Wire Pac media, to meet ASPCL’s strict performance requirements.

Commissioning to exchange the old, unreliable media, began in March, and as of the end of September, the media in five of the six reactors has been replaced. The 60-day testing process for the first bioreactor has already been undertaken and the results to date are proving to be outstanding. The system will be

treating a 30,000 m3/h airflow containing contaminants averaging between 500 to 1,000 ppm, with remarkable efficiency – the system is fully removing up to 1,100 ppm of H2S. The entire system, once fully commissioned, is designed to remove between 800 and 1,200 kg of sulphur per day.

The bioreactor also demonstrated a remarkably fast start-up time – usually it takes around two weeks for hydrogen sulphide removal applications to reach peak performance, but soon after start-up removal at Ajman was complete and the outlet concentration dropped to zero despite substantial fluctuations in the inlet concentration. No other system on the market is able to handle such fluctuations while maintaining performance.

Worldwide Success

Like ACWA, Azzuro’s solutions enjoy worldwide success, with credentials that include a Biological Odour Control System for Honolulu’s Sand Island wastewater treatment plant and emission control systems for challenging emission reductions including diesel fumes for Petrobras Oil Company in Brazil, and an odour control facility for Melbourne’s Western wastewater treatment plant in Australia.

In every case, Azzuro has proved able to cope with conditions that have defeated other systems and provide a reliable, effective answer to demanding and widely varying conditions. The level of confidence is such that process performance is guaranteed.

Cost Effective Solution

Conventional scrubber systems can be retrofitted with Azzuro’s high-performance media. This solution provides immediate and substantial cost savings.

Reliable and Robust

Azzuro’s systems offer exceptionally efficient solutions for high concentration emissions, or general odour removal with an H2S removal efficiency of up to 99.9%. Its high-performance bioreactors maintain performance during high fluctuations in concentrations and can deal with peaks up to twice the average without break-through.

The system is exceptionally reliable and robust, even in the harshest of hot and cold climates. It requires little or no maintenance and minimal operator input nor does it consume or need chemicals or media replacement.

With proven lifetimes of over 17 years, media guarantees of up to 20 years and an expected lifetime of over 25 years it is far and beyond the market standards currently offered.