Grinders Reduce Downtime at Port Isaac Sewage Treatment Works

A high performance TR Muncher® from NOV® Mono® (UK) has been installed at Port Isaac Sewage Treatment Works as part of a major project to combat increasing downtime at the facility.

Managed by South West Water, Port Isaac STW was experiencing problems when its previous equipment kept blocking, requiring constant maintenance and causing serious downtime at the plant.

Mark Hallworth, site operator at Port Isaac STW, commented: “We worked closely with the Mono technical team to identify the best solution for our specific needs, which was the TR Muncher. It delivers far better performance than our previous equipment and we are very happy with the service it gives us – downtime on the site has been significantly reduced.”

Mono’s installation team removed the existing comminutor system and installed, tested and commissioned a new TR Muncher and all inter-connecting pipework and control equipment.

The Muncher has been installed at the Port Isaac facility to macerate heavy solids and rags within the raw sewage flowing into the treatment works at 144m3/h, before the sewage is transferred to a contact stabilisation plant.

The Mono TR Muncher is the latest generation of twin shaft grinders and is specifically designed for the efficient maceration of raw sewage and abrasives sludges up to 500m3/h, to protect downstream equipment from blockages. The differential speed of the cutter stacks pulls apart fibrous material, whilst the leading edge and sides of the cutter teeth crop and shear plastic into small pieces. The circumferential ‘land’ of the cutter crushes friable or brittle material.

The layback cutter shafts on the TR Muncher are set at an angle to the incoming flow. This more effective design allows the Muncher to capture irregular shaped objects and, if a rejection cycle is necessary, the object can be dropped into the built-in trash trap, which is set clear of and below the cutter stacks.