Kaputone scour waste upgraded

Press, 24 July 1987, Page 12

Kaputone scour waste upgraded

The Kaputone Wool Scour has installed an efficient disposal system which has proven to be a world leader by increasing wool grease recovery by up to 50 per cent.

Wool scour effluent has always presented problems because of its high grease content and in some countries scours have been forced to close by environmental considerations.

The new Kaputone treatment system has been installed and tested over six years by Lemar Developments, Ltd, a joint venture between the Mair Astley group and the project manager, Mr Bruce Levy. It has several stages. Stage one separates the scour waste into a dirt sludge, wool grease and liquid effluent by centrifuge action. Wool grease recovery at this point is 30 to 50 per cent higher than with traditional techniques. The dirt sludge is safely used as landfill, wool grease is sold to cosmetics manufacturers and the effluent, which contains some wool grease, is directed into stage two.

Using custom-made evaporators, the effluent’s volume is reduced again by two-thirds into a grease laden sludge and pure water. The steam from this process is redirected to the scouring trains where it heats the washing bowls.

Because the whole process, scour train and effluent disposal is computer controlled and fully automated, the washing temperature is constant to within two degrees Celcius of a set point, grease is more efficiently removed and drying heat is minimised.

Yet it is the final stages of the process which will provide the most benefits to Kaputone. At present the sludgy end product, largely comprising wool grease and suint (produced by sheep glands) is carted away for disposal. But Mr Levy has several further processes in train which will produce a number of useful by-pro-ducts including potassium and a high-energy fuel, which will be burnt and the heat used to run the evaporators at stage two. “Industrial perpetual

motion” is how he described the energy-effi-cient, nil-effluent cycle he is aiming for. By burning one of the by-products of the effluent chain, heat will be transferred back to the evaporators, which provide the energy for the wool scour washing bowls, and these in turn supply the initial intake of waste

liquid to the centrifuges at stage one of the cycle. Joining up the final missing links in the effluent cycle will probably take another 18 months.

Large scale models of the full cycle have been extensively tested by Mr Levy at Kaputone and he is confident of their success.

In the meantime, stage

one effluent technology is now for sale in transportable, modular units and Clifton Wool Scour, Inver-

cargill, has become the first customer. Installation takes about a fortnight. Stage two, which Mr Levy says was the hardest to Complete, was installed at Kaputone earlier this year and is still being fine-tuned. It should be

commercially available by the middle of next year. Prototype stage three technology is currently being made by Swedish engineering company Alfa Laval, in the United States, to specifications. Alfa Laval also supply the centrifuges used in stage one, plus decanters and separators. The evaporators used in stage two however are custom-made by Charleston Engineering in Christchurch. Bruce Levy’s interest in wool scour effluent technology began six years ago while he was working at Kaputone investigating ways of extracting lanoline from wool grease to increase its value.

“The way we have put

the technology together is

unique to Kaputone. Anyone could possible do it, but if they didn’t do it right, they could get into hot water,” he says.

“This is an effluent system designed by a scour for a scour.” With Kaputone as the benchmark, Mr Levy is confident the system will be keenly sought by other wool scours.