®PIUS FINANCING / FOODS /

Abbelen Fleischwaren GmbH & Co. KG:

Treatment and partial recycling of process water

®PIUS check and ®PIUS financing of the EFA point the way

The company
Address:
Abbelen Fleischwaren GmbH & Co. KG
Kempener Straße 20
47918 Tönisvorst
Internet:
www.abbelen.de
Founded:
1969
Business purpose:
Production of fried convenience meat products
such as rissoles, cheeseburgers,
hot dogs
Employees:
430 /

Areas of potential and action

The production of the extensive range of meat products
– for example, some 375 t of rissoles are produced each week – requires an appropriately flexible job-order production system.
Market success, the high quality and hygiene standards in production also saw a rise in operating costs in the field of process water and process energy. As a consequence, in 2004 Abbelen initiated the PIUS check with the aim of lowering the overall use of water, chemicals and energy, taking into consideration the high requirements of food hygiene.
An analysis was undertaken of the internal value added
(goods-in, meat preparation, portioning, frying line, frosting, packaging and contract cleaning).
Improvements in the process, incorporating the employees,
enabled process water consumption to be significantly reduced by 0.32 m3/t of product, for example via a drier pre-cleaning process. / After this, the waste water containing fat, meat residue, brine
and marinade enters a cleaning system comprising a pre-separator and post-separator for fats.
It did not prove possible to solve the problem of the lipophilic substances released by large quantities of hot cleaning water using standard fat separators.
Abbelen therefore turned to ASR technology (aerobic sludge reactor) with downstream ultra-filtration (UF) and reverse osmosis, comprising the following stages:
Mechanical cleaning via sieves and rotors Biological cleaning with the activated sludge process Sludge separation via ultra-filtration Water treatment via reverse osmosis Partial recycling to the cooling towers

The benefits

A pump initially brings the waste water for solids removal from a collector shaft through a rotating filter in a mixing and equalising reservoir. Here there is sedimentation of coarse material, temperature equalisation and automatic correction of the pH value via the addition of caustic soda. The concluding biological treatment is undertaken by an aerobic sludge reactor, with the separation of reusable biomass from the treated waste water performed by downstream ultra-filtration. The sludge accrued / is drained using a solid-bowl screw-type centrifuge (decanter) with integrated press.
The cleaned process water is used exclusively in the cooling towers with a share of 25 % as supply water.
The result is a closed cooling water circuit with water savings of
10,000 m3 per year.

Comparison of fat separator system with ASR and UF:

Fat separator system / ASR and UF: process water treatment
Waste water put into drains / Recycled supply water
CSB / 7,669mg/l / < 150mg/l / < 30mg/l
BSB5 / 2,945mg/l / < 42mg/l / < 10mg/l
BSB7 / 3,140mg/l / < 50mg/l / < 12mg/l
Lipophilic substances / 1,400mg/l / < 10 mg/l / 0mg/l
Settleable substances / 614mg/l / < 5mg/l / < 1mg/l
Pges / 48mg/l / < 10mg/l / < 5mg/l
Nges / 238 mg/l / < 25mg/l / < 5mg/l
Waste water / 48,000m3/a / 34,500 m3/a / -

The path to financing

Following the PIUS check the EFA conducted
PIUS financing consulting. The EFA drew up
a financing recommendation for the investment to the amount
of 1 m euros. The project was subsidised with / a grant from the NRW Ecological and Sustainable Water Management Initiative
aid programme,
funding area 1.1 (2000 - 2006), of the NRW Environment
Ministry.

The project partners

Project partners / Contact / Telephone / E-mail
Abbelen Fleischwaren GmbH & Co. KG / Clemens Louven / +49 (0)2156 / 97 89 35 /
Effizienz-Agentur NRW / Matthias Graf / +49 (0)203 / 378 79 - 46 /
Marcus Lodde / +49 (0)203/ 3 78 79 - 58 /

Published by: Effizienz-Agentur NRW · Mülheimer Straße 100 · 47057 Duisburg

Tel. +49 (0)203 / 3 78 79 - 30 · Fax +49 (0)203 / 3 78 79 - 44 · · www.efanrw.de

(July 2008)