effluent TDS content

[nabtastic]

I realize the industry standard is to flush the effluent down the drain - with exception to those that make biogas from it. Any other uses for it?

Anyone know the nutrient content of rum effluent? I realize there will be massive differences between a blackstrap wash all the way to an agricole or panela wash.

thanks,

NAB

[Silk City Distillers]

Check out "Study of Rum Distillery Waste Treatment and By-product Recovery Technologies" on the EPA website. By far I think the most common large scale commercial approach is anaerobic digestion.

There are a ton of journal articles discussing this from across the Caribbean.

Some details from another article on the EPA site, "Rum Distillery Slops Treatment by Anaerobic Contact Process":

70-100gm/l COD

75-85gm/l TDS

3-10gm/l TSS

From "Investigation of Rum Distillery Slops Treatment by Anaerobic Contact Process"

70-100gm/l COD

20-60gm/l BOD

25-75gm/l TDS

7-10gm/l TSS

1.8-2.5gm/l Nitrogen

80-100gm/l Phosphorus

2-10gm/l Sulfate

pH 4.0-4.7

[nabtastic]

Reviving a bit of a dead thread but I'm meeting with a professor that has extensive knowledge in anaerobic digesters.  I've not came across any new distilleries doing this but would love to talk to some that have.  My (limited) understanding is that methane can be produced and the effluent from biogas reactor is a great fertilizer.  I've never came across construction techniques, other than simplified drawings, or cost of installation or operation.. 

[biodzldan]

On 6/23/2016 at 10:11 PM, nabtastic said:

Reviving a bit of a dead thread but I'm meeting with a professor that has extensive knowledge in anaerobic digesters.  I've not came across any new distilleries doing this but would love to talk to some that have.  My (limited) understanding is that methane can be produced and the effluent from biogas reactor is a great fertilizer.  I've never came across construction techniques, other than simplified drawings, or cost of installation or operation.. 

Based on prior reading when I used to work on other bioenergy projects - anaerobic digesters don't become economically viable until they're big. Real big. Granted, natural gas in Hawaii costs 3-4x what it costs on the mainland, so maybe you have more flexibility, but I would be extremely surprised if any micro-distiller could ever make a system like this worth the hassle. 

[nabtastic]

What were the purposes of your prior projects?  I'm only interested in heating water - not resale.  Anaerobic digestion isn't complicated at all - but I'm looking at is as an alternative to solar power ("green" energy alts)  for heating and not a pure alternative to propane (though a similar cost or less would be nice).  

[biodzldan]

It was in the context of biodiesel production. Anaerobic digestion was one of the alternatives that we looked at to deal with the glycerol byproduct. "Isn't complicate at all" are among the more common famous last words. Is the basic principal difficult? No. It starts getting complicated when you add in your real world requirements. On the plus side, you don't have to worry about compression, drying, sulfur removal, siloxane removal (more of a landfill gas problem, I think), or storage.

 - Can you build something that is reliable and won't distract you from your main task of producing rum?

 - Can anyone but you operate it? Can it be automated?

 - Can you find spare parts for it when it breaks? How quickly?

 - How steady is the supply of your waste feed? How well does the process deal with perturbations? How steady is the gas supply produced? Does that fit with your hot water demands?

[nabtastic]

That's pretty much my point - I'm not looking for a commercially viable end product. I just need it to burn in-house, i think it needs scrubbed for the boiler but not 100%.  The parameters for running a 350k btu boiler 3x a week vs selling methane or biodiesel on a commercial level are drastically different, as I'm sure you are aware.  

These are the questions I'm hoping Dr. Khanal will help with (he's written quite a few text books on the subject but idk how well known he is in commercial operations).  I'm getting him samples of our vinasse in the next few weeks and we'll all know the answers soon enough.  If we can't operate it at a steady state, and mostly automated, then no - we won't pursue it.  

We only use the boiler to run the still (no starches to convert over here) so the only hot water we can use is what goes through the boiler or to our domestic sinks.  Incidentally, I'm also looking into this as the PPP energy group for our rural area has expressed interest in doing it.  As I see it, the questions that we both have can be answered for free, so why not ask them? 

To be clear here, I'm not saying this is an idea that everyone should follow and that it's free energy for everyone.  I'm just asking if it can be done in a cost-effective manner for our unique situation.  

[biodzldan]

Hopefully you weren't taking my comments as criticism. They were, more or less, just advise from projects I have witnessed or participated in at this scale. But the unique economics and waste disposal problems of your location may support things that would be infeasible elsewhere.

In terms of scrubbing - if you are using a commercial boiler with steel tubes, sulfur scrubbing may be necessary. It is most problematic if you are using a high-efficiency condensing boiler, since you will form sulfuric acid in the exhaust stream. I'm assuming here that nobody is going to scrutinize your stack emissions.

 

 

 

 

[nabtastic]

Criticism is welcome and necessary - I know very little about this in practice (as I'm sure you are aware).  I'm just saying that I don't have the answers to those questions yet but hope to in the near future (few months?).  Out here, if it doesn't cause a visual problem then all is forgiven lol.  

I didn't mean to come off snippy.. still waking up and didn't proof read  

[inuakena]

Wondering if you got any further on this nab. I know Kona Brewing is putting in a small digester at their new brewery on the Big Island, but their wastewater volumes are larger, of course. I've worked on treatment projects for vinasse both digested and undigested using membranes, but only as the result of various regulatory actions. The bigger distilleries like Serralles and Demerara Distillers digest their vinasse, which makes up more than half of their power to the stills, which is pretty awesome. Angostura put one in last year but only because the local WWTP couldn't handle their BOD/COD anymore. In Brazil, the vinasse mostly goes back into the fields, but the phenols build up over time and eventually attenuate sugar production in the cane, so more are looking at treatment options there as well. 

[nabtastic]

I havent heard anything back from the university yet. I just got the samples to them a few weeks ago and they are doing it for free so I'm not trying to push them.  

Our current production is low but we will be at least trippling production over the next 12-16 months, eventually producing 16 tons of bagasse a week on 2000 gallons of juice.  I dig that these are still  low numbers but it takes forever to get stuff done out here and I want to be ahead when I can.

[inuakena]

Sounds good. I'll watch this space! 

[lokibrew]

Interesting thread.   I'd like to chime in on a couple of recent points I picked up.

 

Great article in Artisan Spirits this quarter on what Do Good did with their wastewater:  Artisan Spirit: Fall 2016:
https://issuu.com/artisanspiritmag/docs/artisanspirit_issue016_web/50

 

My Alumni magazine had an article about a program developing a microbe for micro digester.  I think this was the professor:  http://www.sonoma.edu/biology/faculty/michael_cohen.html

 

And lastly, there are steam boilers that can run on bagasse, wood chips or pellets to make use of the whole waster stream.