Australia strikes up the band as World Centre of Excellence for fine screening technology

Australia has been declared the World Centre of Excellence for the application on sewage treatment of an advanced fine screening technology that can substantially extend the lifespan and reduce maintenance of sewage treatment plants.

The global Eimco Water Technologies (EWT) group has made its Australian EWT-AJM Environmental Services group the international leader for the application on sewage of its Brackett Green® CF100® and CF200® Band Screens technology.

EWT – which has 1500 staff and a presence in 40 countries – has established its Centre of Excellence in Australia because of the local operations’ expertise built up through the rapid uptake of the technology in Australia and New Zealand.

Brackett Green® Band Screens technology is being adopted internationally for municipal installations to meet the expanding need for waste water fine screening to capture solids that either clog conventional screens or bypass them entirely.

“Because of the rapid uptake in Australasia the screens are now fully manufactured in Australia,” says (EWT-AJM) National Sales Manager, Industrial/Municipal, Mr John Koumoukelis.

Brackett Green Limited, founded in 1899, was the original designer of all forms of screening equipment and currently has about 9,000 installations in some 85 countries worldwide. Brackett Green® was acquired in 2005 by Eimco Water Technologies, which is part of the GLV group.

“We in Australia have been extremely busy with the Brackett Green® Band Screens, with many installations across Australia and New Zealand adopting this high performance technology for sewage inlet works and desalination intakes,” said Mr Koumoukelis.

“Australasian applications currently under way will feature mesh apertures down to 2mm, with the standard being 5mm for sewage. This permits near-total capture of solid waste and protects plant that could otherwise be high maintenance, including pumps, impellers and mixers. A further benefit of the fine screening is prevention of needle stick injuries from sharp waste and an overall need for less hands-on maintenance,” said Mr Koumoukelis.

The declaration of Australia as World Centre of Excellence complements broader expansion of AJM EWT, which now offers an even broader range of high performance physical, chemical and biological processes, he says.

Based on the Brackett Green® Band Screen technology supplied for raw water applications and utilizing features developed for the Brackett Sewage Drum Screen, the band screens introduced to Australasia have proved to be a reliable and efficient fine screen both as a retrofit and for new installations on raw sewage and treated effluent.
Brackett Green® has been at the forefront of screening technology for over a century. They have seen bar screens and step screens come and go, and now they almost exclusively deal in band screens for sewage treatment works.
Their CF200® and CF100® band screens have been tested independently at the UK National Screen Evaluation Facility and found to offer the highest capture rates of the many screens tested, up to 93 per cent.

“With the ever increasing demand for the improvement of discharge standards and membrane applications, all unacceptable solids need to be retained by the wastewater screening system rather than passing downstream and creating more expensive problems there. A relatively simple and comparatively smaller investment upstream can prevent major problems and considerable expense downstream,” says Mr Koumoukelis.