Infraserv Höchst plans to build a co-digestion plant in Industriepark Höchst. Every day, the plant will produce 30,000 m3 of biogas by converting the organic constituents of bio solids and organic wastes. Infraserv Höchst is investing some EUR 15 million in the facility, the first of its kind to generate biogas with industrial bio solids.
This summer, construction began in the western sector of the 4.6-km² industrial park. Industriepark Höchst houses more than 80 companies in the chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and process industry and is the daily workplace for 22,000 employees. The codigestion plant, scheduled to start up in the third quarter of 2007, consists of two digestion tanks, each measuring 30 m tall with a volume of some 11,000 m3. In addition, workers will be building a power house, combined heat-and-power plants, two nitrification tanks and two more tanks called sludge thickeners. The plant will start out with a yearly capacity of 90,000 t of co-substrates, but it is modular, and can be expanded as needed. The biogas will be converted to 4 MWs of electricity and heat in a combined heat-and-power plant.
The process of co-digestion is not new; municipal sewage works already use it. What is new is its application at an industrial site – until now, industrial bio solids were poorly suited for anaerobic digestion and biogas production. However, bio solid composition has changed at Industriepark Höchst in recent years, due partly to the modernization of the wastewater treatment and pre treatment plants, and partly to alterations in the wastewater mix at the park. The newest facilities, for example, mostly generate easily biodegradable wastewater. Many resident companies have also optimized their production processes: Not only do they produce less wastewater, but they have incorporated pre-treatment to keep undesirable constituents from reaching the wastewater-treatment plant.
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