Scour effluent breakthrough?

Press, 8 July 1982, Page 1

Scour effluent breakthrough?

A . world-wide effluent problem with industrial wool scours may have been solved by a Christchurch company. Lemar Developments, Ltd, thinks that its effluent-burn-ing trials at the Kaputone wool scour at Belfast are a possible world first. The new process is the most promising and economical of five options under investigation for Mair and Company, Ltd, the Christchurch woolbuyer.

A drastic reduction in the quantity of effluent discharged into the Waimakariri River is the biggest potential advantage, but other benefits could also save New Zealand millions of dollars in imported fertilisers and reduce the industry’s heating fuel bills.

Lemar Developments is excited about the treatment process but is reluctant to disclose much detail or to speculate about its effect on the industry. Patents are pending on the new development and a wool grease burning process, which was its forerunner..

A director, Mr B. W. Levy, said that the results were encouraging enough to warrant asking engineers to de-

sign a larger treatment plant. Only 5 per cent of effluent now passed through the new process. Kaputone could switch to a full-scale treatment system within a year, but it would cost "hundreds of thousands” of dollars and would depend on Government loan assistance.

The new process claims to reduce the toxicity of the discharge more than 99 per cent, to leave, an effluent of almost the same quality as the river water. At present only heavier solids are

separated before effluent is flooded downstream.' Successful experiments burning wool grease as an alternative, boiler fuel, and the aborted Chaneys waste treatment plant, encouraged Lemar Development to take the original idea one step further and burn effluent — a mixture of grease and suint. Trials, which started about four months ago, burnt concentrated effluent to generate steam. The steam was used to heat hot water for the wool scour. An analysis of the remaining ash showed a high concentration of potassium carbonate. A chemical reaction converted it to potassium sulphate and nitrate, two fertiliser bases imported into New Zealand.