Olive oil Waste Water (OMW)
Waste water from olive oil production, which is called "Alpechin" in
Spanish, is a waste water which contains large amounts of organic substances.
In most cases, it is collected in vaporization ponds or is directly conveyed
into the drainage ditch. This results in problems of smell and a dark, almost
black discoloration of lakes, rivers and canals.
Another problem might be
the contamination of the ground water.
The treatment of the waste water in
sewage plants and the irrigation of the waste water onto fields is problematic
due to the toxic effect of its polyphenol content.
An
environment-friendly solution is a plant in which the solid and the liquid
residues from olive oil production are treated.
The high energy content of
the solid residues is used for the generation of electrical energy. They are
incinerated after dehydration and drying. The steam generated in the boiler is
used as motive steam for a turbine. The power generated by means of a generator
is supplied to the municipal power distribution network.
Part of the
turbine exhaust steam of an approximate pressure of 0.16 bar is used as heating
medium for an evaporation plant. In the evaporation plant, the waste water is
concentrated from 5 % to 50 % TS. The concentrate can be used as fertilizer or,
after another increase of the dry substance content to approx. 65 - 70 % TS, it
can also be incinerated.
The evaporated water is condensed and can be
used as process water. The condensed turbine exhaust steam is transferred to
the boiler.
The evaporation plant mainly consists of a falling film
evaporator and a forced circulation evaporator as high concentrator. The
evaporator type is selected in view of the specific product properties. The
evaporator design is based on evaporation tests which we carry out on the
original waste water at our R & D Center.
