The distillery, owned by Chivas Brothers, currently have a wastewater treatment plant consisting of traditional fixed film biotowers, older trickling filters and associated settlement tanks. The plant also features a Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) system installed by SPS nine years ago, which significantly enhanced treatment performance and which has since helped the site to maintain discharge compliance whilst increasing production. However, due to continued focus on optimising performance, the distillery needed to provide further treatment security, to bolster the biological treatment capacity on site. This would reduce pressure on the more ageing trickling filters which are planned for replacement in due course. Following the success of Siltbuster’s MBBR at their Glen Keith distillery, Chivas turned to SPS for a solution.
Following discussions with site, a Siltbuster MBBR20 complete with duty/standby blower skid was simply incorporated into the existing treatment process. This additional biological treatment stage enables the existing plant to continue treating up to 8m3/hour of wastewater, and provides the safeguard Chivas were looking for, considerably improving the standard of the treated water being discharged to the local water course. This reduces process risk whilst Chivas develops its plans for the longer-term treatment requirements of the site.
David Gaskill, Proposal Manager at Siltbuster Process Solutions, said: “Following our site survey, we discovered we could use gravity flow through the MBBR20, which helped us to ensure a steady and constant flow through the whole treatment plant. We then worked closely with a local engineering firm to ensure that the existing pipework on site was modified appropriately so that, when our kit arrived on site, it was just a case of connecting it up. This minimised our installation time, ensuring we did not disrupt operations for our client.”
Graeme Cruickshank, Chivas Brothers’ Distillery
Operations Manager at Aberlour Distillery said: “In our continual review of
existing assets, we were looking at ways to optimise our current wastewater
treatment plant. From discussions with SPS we knew that the addition of the
MBBR20 would have a positive impact on our final discharge quality. Aberlour is
located at the confluence of two rivers – the Lour and the Spey – and it’s
vital that our wastewater is treated to the highest standard before it is
discharged into these sensitive waterways.”