Waste heat recovery system

Full text: The Konzen in-house designed anaerobic digester system for the POME (Palm Oil Mill Effluent) treatment process is one of the registered Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in Malaysia. It is an organic wastewater treatment process which achieves excellent co-benefits objectives through the prevention of water pollution and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which is estimated to be 40,000 to 50,000 t-CO2 per year. The anaerobic digester was designed in mesophile mode with temperature ranging from 37 degree Celsius to 45 degree Celsius. A microorganisms growth is optimum under moderately warm temperature conditions. The operating temperature of the anaerobic digester needs to be maintained constantly. There are two waste heat recovery systems designed to make the treatment process self-sustaining. The heat recovered will be utilised as a clean energy source to heat up the anaerobic digester indirectly. The first design for the waste heat recovery system utilises heat generated from the flue gas of the biogas flaring system. A stainless steel water tank with an internal water layer is installed at the top level of the flare stack. The circulating water is heated by the methane enriched biogas combustion process. The second design utilizes heat generated during the compression process for the biogas compressor operation. The compressed biogas needs to be cooled before being recycled back into the digester tank for mixing purposes. Both the waste heat recovery systems use a design which applies a common water circulation loop and hot water tank to effectively become a closed loop. The hot water tank will perform both storage and temperature buffer functions. The hot water is then used to heat up recycled sludge from 30 degree Celsius to 45 degree Celsius with the maximum temperature setting at 50 degree Celsius. The recycled sludge line temperature will be measured and monitored by a temperature sensor and transmitter, which will activate the waste heat recovery system for sludge heating, in fully automatic operation mode. The heated sludge is fed back into the digester for constant and optimum performance within the desired temperature range. (author)