Baioni water treatment plants: Technology for separation and clarification

Baioni Water Treatment Division is the brand of the group aimed at designing complete wastewater treatment plants: solids and liquids separators, water clarification and thickeners, polymer stations and dosing accessories, machinery for fine sand washing plants and recovery.

The Italian company Baioni Crushing Plants offer a comprehensive range of products for application in the mining, construction, recycling and waste management fields throughout the world. Baioni washing plant installations have proved to be efficient when applied to the benefit of a wide range of materials from sand and gravel.

In an attempt to protect our ecological surroundings and minimize the negative effects of industrial processes, it is necessary to purify and recover the waters used during washing operations of aggregates. The first step is to recover 100% of the waters used and to eliminate the concentration of sludge. Plants and machines for water clarification are basically thickeners which offer efficient primary stage water treatment. Baioni thickener is a steel tank demountable for transport operations with six rakes supplied as standard; dinamic bridge with hydraulic system when water level is particularly crucial; gearbox and heavy duty shaft and rake assembly with full walkway access. For flushing of sludge, it is necessary to concentrate it into the discharging cone: the whole structure is purposely equipped with some rakes which concentrate sludge into the cone through a very low speed rotation. Rakes rotate along tank floor allowing a high quality sludge and avoiding any clogging. The introduction of Baioni system brings significant cost savings as it reduces the area previously required to accommodate ponds or lagoons, pumps and accessories are outside allowing easy access and maintenance. It also reduces the volume of fresh water required to feed the washing plant by up to 80% as there is a constant water flow during the process, so waters are reused instead of being disposed off. It is a compact design for rapid installation and minimum down time.

Some flocculant is generally used to minimize the processing costs. Flocculated sludge coming out from the clarifier goes then to dehydration. Baioni offer an horizontal high performace centrifuge decanter which is the result of a long experience in the mining and recycling sector. Baioni Crushing Plants Spa introduced the range of centrifuges to the UK market in 2007. Since then, 12 have been sold in the UK, 80 worldwide and with many clients placing repeat orders. After many years of research and development it was Baioni company's main aim to be able to provide a reliable machine for the aggregates market, especially the recycled aggregates and quarry industry. The growing need to capture silt and turn it into solids and the need to reclaim water have been high on the priorities for most quarrying companies. This enables them to open up land areas, that were once used for lagoon settlement, and in some cases land areas in excess of 20 hectares have been opened up for other more profitable uses. Many inner cities recycled aggregate plants where it was not possible to use the lagoon method of settlement, especially because of strict health and safety requirements. For this reason centrifuges are the best system to turn slurry into solids dry enough to be handled and transported at a lower cost to conventional land fill sites. With water immediately recoverable is sent back to the washing plant.

Over the 12 years Baioni have developed a range of 9 centrifuges capable of producing 1 tonne to 20 tonnes per hour of dry solids. These machines can be run automatically from a plc system which has been introduced to allow both the control of the decanter and of the whole dewatering plant. A touch screen display controls all functions of slurry input, feed pump, polymer dosing pump, automatic wash, down system. At the end of its programmed shift it will internally wash down the machine 10 mins before the end. The plc also allows for the centrifuge to be manually operated if required.

Baioni centrifuges have been available in the Uk since 2009 in the Pod format: working side by side with our English dealers, Baioni made it possible to build the process into the mobile washing systems, still very popular and requested in the UK. Centrifuges are fitted into specially built containers which all the controls and polymer systems are built in. This mobile unit can be delivered to site and be operational within a very short space of time. It is also available for hire from UK operators.

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