News

UASB refurbishment in the brewery industry, Romania

2 Feb 2019

Ursus Breweries is one of the largest brewing companies in Romania, operating three breweries in Brașov, Buzău, and Timișoara.

The Buzău brewery, in operation since 1978, has a production capacity of 500.000 hl per year. Its anaerobic UASB reactor, with a daily treatment capacity of 4.500 m3, generates approximately 8.000 Nm3 of biogas per day, which is treated using a chemical desulfurization unit.

Identified issues & refurbishment

During the second trimester of 2018, several nonconformities were detected in the influent distribution system, along with significant corrosion in the UASB reactor settlers at the Buzău brewery.

Corrosion was particularly evident in the steel-coated internals, and this is an indication of serious leakages (a lot of biogas) underneath the covers of the UASB.

On a closer inspection it become clear that the internals of the UASB reactor were moved. There are 10 separate UASB settlers which all need to be at the same level, as otherwise the system will be hydraulically problematic leading to the washing out of granular biomass, biogas emissions, and all kind of operational problems.

Therefore, at the beginning of 2019, Ursus Breweries Buzau Romania, decided to replace the internals of Ursus Buzau UASB with an advanced UASB hardware.

Outcome

The refurbishment, implemented under HydroThane, now operating as AquaThane, was caried out by the Romanian team and completed in approximately three months, from June 2019 to August 2019.

These upgrades have enabled the brewery to efficiently handle a COD load 40% higher than the original design, reaching up to 15 kg COD/m3/day.

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