Danish sewage plant chooses fixed VOC to track hydrocarbons 17 October 2014

In a bid to avoid costly and time consuming sludge clean-up, Danish sewage treatment plant Frederikshavn Renseanlaeg has installed a fixed total volatile organic compound (TVOC) detector from Ion Science.

"Hydrocarbons in sewage lines pose a threat to maintenance personnel and could contaminate the sludge in a sewage treatment plant," explains Rasmus Bendsen, technical manager at Duotex, Ion Science distributor in Denmark.

"Most people believe that sewage is already a highly contaminated product," he continues. "However, there is a big difference in the risk to human health from sludge that contains just waste and sludge that also contains hydrocarbons."

Bendsen explains that there are many reasons why sewage sludge might become contaminated with hydrocarbons – including as a result of defective oil separators, spills or even dumping.

Also, once sludge contains hydrocarbons it has to be treated as chemical waste rather than fertiliser, which significantly increases the price of disposal.

Frederikshavn Renseanlaeg chose the Ion Science TVOC because of its robust design and its ability to provide a wireless alarm when hydrocarbons were detected.

Bendsen says the system's 12V dc operation was another factor, because it made the system easy to set – with just one lead-acid battery to power both the detector and wireless module.

Brian Tinham

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