Whether it’s lemonade or wheat beer, there will be a large amount of wastewater wherever beverages are produced. The requirements for wastewater treatment in this area are as varied as the products themselves.
Who doesn’t know them, the cheerful, colourful and unbreakable bottles with the unmistakable screw cap? For 45 years now, the ‘Twist and Drink’ brand has stood for a range of fruity refreshments that children in particular love. Every year, 50 million bottles of the cult drink with its retro charm are produced by the family business Klosterquell Hofer in the town of Gutenstein in Lower Austria. 80% is exported, to as far away as Russia, China and Australia.
Due to the production process, the wastewater, which is treated at the company’s own treatment plant, contains a lot of sugar. There are also fluctuating load peaks due to very uneven loads. ‘Our requirements for discharge into the receiving water stream are also very stringent’, says Production Manager cum engineer Martin Rathner. Twist and Drink is, after all, produced in the largely untouched countryside at the foot of the Schneeberg, Lower Austria’s highest mountain, with 85% mountain spring water as the main ingredient. So everything has to be right, and VTA makes sure of that with a powerful duo: VTA Nanofloc® accelerates and optimises the key steps in the treatment process.
‘As a guarantor of a low sludge volume index and high sedimentation rate, it prevents the washing away of sludge or very fine flocs’, explains VTA expert Bernhard Scheuringer (technical field service for international markets). At the same time, the biocoenosis of the plant is systematically inoculated and strengthened with additional microorganisms by VTA Biokat® in a specification developed specifically for this customer. The VTA system product VTA Biokat® is used to promote and support the growth of floc bacteria, which effectively suppresses the required filamentous bacteria.
‘Our treatment plant manager is incredibly enthusiastic about how wonderful flocculation is and the excellent settleability of the activated sludge’, reports Production Manager Rathner. For him, it is important that the plant runs stably and reliably, as any failure would immediately result in a production stop. Random successes would in any case not be enough for Martin Rathner: ‘VTA delivers replicable results that are also very acceptable economically.’
Field report from the VTA Group’s scientific journal “Laubfrosch”, issue 77
Ing. Martin Rathner
Production Manager Dreh und Trink
„VTA ist kompetent und lösungsorientiert – für uns eindeutig der richtige Partner! Unser Klärwärter schwärmt richtiggehend vom wunderbaren Flockenbild und dem hervorragenden Absetzverhalten des Belebtschlammes."
