LAURUS PRO is a vertical bioreactor for local and modular treatment plants. The biological zones, the biofilm media, the internal circulation and the controlled aeration are placed along the height of a single vessel; the classical layout spreads them across several chambers with separate clarifiers.
The vertical vessel gathers biological treatment along its height: in the lower and the intermediate parts conditions arise for the preliminary biological preparation of the wastewater and for denitrification, in the aerated zone the organics are oxidised, nitrification proceeds and the attached biomass works on the media, and higher up the treated water is separated from the mixed liquor and goes to the outlet or to polishing, where the project calls for it.
It is meant for the local treatment plants of sites where the space is limited and the load varies: private housing, the hotel sector, residential complexes, cottage settlements and small production facilities. The set of zones, the type of aeration, the biofilm media, the recirculation system and the controls are chosen for the flow, the composition of the wastewater and the requirements on the treated water, so the platform is adapted to different capacities as a modular one.
A classical local plant is built to a horizontal scheme: several chambers, a long path for the water, separate clarifiers, pumps, recirculation lines and aeration, tied together by an involved internal hydraulics. Such a layout works, but it takes area, and its very length makes the scheme sensitive to hydraulic errors — stagnant pockets, short circuits, weak mixing and an uneven performance of the biological zones may appear in the chambers.
The structures are placed on a limited plot next to a house, a hotel, a residential complex, a restaurant or a production building, and there they have to stay convenient to service and to call for no involved civil infrastructure. On many sites the space is already taken by old tanks, septic tanks and clarifiers: sometimes a vertical biological module is fitted into the existing scheme, and sometimes the old structures are easier to replace outright.
Instead of stretching the process horizontally, the development arranges the treatment inside a vertical vessel: the main zones are placed along its height and work as a single technological system. The wastewater passes through them in sequence from the bottom upwards — the preliminary biological preparation and the anoxic processes, then the aerobic oxidation of the organics with nitrification and the work of the activated sludge, then the separation of the treated water from the mixed liquor.
The make-up of the apparatus follows the duty: anaerobic, anoxic and aerobic zones, biofilm media, an aeration system, internal recirculation, a settling zone, sludge return, oxygen and level sensors, automation and remote monitoring enter it in different combinations. The particular configuration is chosen for the site, the flow and the composition of the wastewater: industrial effluent is accepted where its composition is close to the domestic one or where it has passed a pre-treatment removing fats and surfactants, while the vertical layout stays common to every version.
Aeration is one of the main consumers of energy at a treatment plant, and a departure in either direction is costly. An excess of air is paid for in electricity every day, while with too little of it the biological process turns unstable: an odour appears, the treatment degrades and a washout of sludge may begin. Energy efficiency here comes not from a single element but from the whole technological logic of a compact vertical volume.
The separation of the zones, a rational internal circulation and the biofilm media take part of the load off the air: superfluous mixing is cut back, and the supply is set to the real demand of the biological process rather than with a margin. The same split is carried into a separate unit, SmartAeration, which tells the demand for oxygen apart from the need for mixing; in a vertical vessel the air also works as transport, and that bears on the movement of the flows and not on the biology alone.
In a system with free-floating sludge the biomass is held in suspension, and with a change of load, a hydraulic overload or a failure of settling part of it is washed out of the plant. The biofilm media create an added surface on which a biofilm forms, the active microflora is retained inside the reactor, and the attached biomass is treated as a further factor in the stability of the biological treatment.
That stability is needed where the load changes in steps: a hotel is nearly empty out of season and full in season, a restaurant delivers surge discharges, a residential complex fills up gradually, a production site works unevenly. With the AQUABIOX bioactive media the biofilm forms more steadily and the plant reaches its working regime sooner — an instrument for strengthening the biology, not a substitute for the separation of zones.
A septic tank mostly settles the wastewater and works in an anaerobic regime, an ordinary aeration tank as one commonly mixed volume; here, by contrast, there are controlled zones, aeration, the retention of biomass and internal flows. In MBBR the mobile media call for constant mixing and for retaining elements, whereas a vertical layout admits a more controlled placement of the biofilm media and of the internal hydraulics.
SBR works in cycles — filling, aeration, settling, decanting — whereas LAURUS PRO is meant for a more continuous operation, which suits both a steady and a varying inflow. An MBR gives a high quality of separation between water and sludge, but calls for membranes, cleaning cycles and more involved service: the accent here is on compact biological treatment, and where the requirements on the water are higher the platform may develop towards the membrane version, LAURUS MBR.
LAURUS PRO is SOLVIA's own technological development in the field of vertical bioreactors for the biological treatment of wastewater, and the technology holds patent protection in Russia. The technology is being developed as a product platform for compact, energy-efficient and stable local treatment plants, and it is used on its own or together with other developments: the AQUABIOX bioactive media, the SmartAeration unit, the membrane version LAURUS MBR, the retrofit module, SCADA and water reuse systems. Structural parameters, the tuning regimes, the internal layout and particular technological features are not disclosed in open materials and are selected for the individual site.
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