Lamella settlement tanks are a compact solution that is said to enhance water treatment processes. To maximise their efficiency, the plates inside the tanks need to be regularly cleaned, and a manual process that poses several challenges in terms of operator safety and effectiveness.
Within both water and wastewater treatment plants, Lamella settlement processes are used to remove solids from the water stream. The increased surface area of the Lamella plates is said to enable this process to be achieved in a small footprint, making the tanks suitable for increasing treatment capacity without the need for huge areas of land.
Conventional cleaning procedures for the plate packs include manual spraying with a water hose, using a built-in water spray system. In all these scenarios, the water levels in the settlement tank must be lowered to ensure efficient cleaning. The process has to be halted while cleaning is conducted.
Nordic Water’s CleanBot completes an automated process during normal tank operation. The robot resides in a charging station before it is deployed on a pre-timed basis to mechanically clean the plates.
The robot is positioned on the rails above the Lamella plates before it lowers the cleaning head between the plates and removes all the solids that have been deposited. After one set of plates has been cleaned, the robot is moved to the next row, and the process continues until all the plate assemblies have been cleaned.
The interval between each cleaning operation can be adjusted as required depending on the application. Trials of the robot have been completed over the last 12 months and now the fully automatic version has been launched to support operators of the LPS tanks and improve their efficiency.
The charging station also houses the control panel and a lifting mechanism to transfer the CleanBot onto the plate rails. If the CleanBot needs to recharge, it returns to the charging station before completing its task.
Niklas Windahl, product manager for Nordic Water, said: “The CleanBot can be retrofitted to existing LPS equipment and enables enhanced performance without the need for pumps or compressed air. Its automatic operation can also allow the sludge separation process to continue uninterrupted and as efficiently as possible with the tank kept in operation.”