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MEMBER’S PRESS RELEASE: Dairy Crest Davidstow Creamery in Cornwall

Huber Technology: The Dairy Crest Creamery in Davidstow is the largest producer of mature cheddar and the most advanced cheese making creamery in Europe. When an upgrade of the sludge handling facility was required, Dairy Crest turned to several suppliers of dewatering equipment to dewater their sludge’s. Four different sludge streams arise from their modern effluent plant and it was initially thought they might behave differently with regards to polymer requirements and dewatering potential so bench trials with each sludge were undertaken and various combinations that may occur were tested. The four streams comprised of; DAF flotate, activated sludge, settled sludge and back-wash sludge and they varied in quantity, % dry solids content, pH and colour. After bench tests, Huber installed their trial plant to get some full scale results and attempt to reproduces the results from the laboratory work.

The trial plant is supplied as a complete package and incorporates; the dewaterer itself, the polyelectrolyte (poly) dosing unit, the sludge feed pump, the flocculation reactor and the control panel. The container also comes with a conveyor that is positioned under the discharge point from the dewaterer and allows cake to be deposited outside the container.

Various combinations of feed were trialed. With the DAF sludge achieving a high throughput of 7 m3/h at 3.3% feed solids and a good solids capture ratio whereas the biological sludge’s gave a wetter cake from a 1-2% DS feed. In all cases, the volume reduction was 4 to 6 times the feed volume thus reducing transport and disposal costs.

The resultant cake is storable and spreadable by muck spreader and considerably easier to handle.

The RoS3 screw press is totally enclosed, and showed a vast improvement over the existing belt press in cleanliness and performance. The screw press operates at 1 to 6 RPM and requires 14% of the power for a centrifuge with none of the high wear, speed, noise and vibration associated with the centrifuge.

After successful Trials Huber have been pleased to accept an order from Dairy Crest for 2 off Screwpress units and associated polymer dosing equipment.

For further information contact: Tony Clutten, Huber Process Sales Manager, Tel: 01249765050 Mobile: 07525224521 Email: tc@huber.co.uk

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