ClearCove Wastewater Treatment
The ClearCove technology is based on a simple, non-biological, physical-chemical process, encompassing settling and screening to provide enhanced capture of organics and solids versus conventional technologies. The ClearCapture technology enables Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis membranes downstream which allows F&B processors to recover up to 80+% of their process wastewater to reuse quality without the use of biology.
How Does It Work
Influent wastewater is pumped from an equalization tank into the ClearCapture system, where it is mixed with a chemical coagulant.
When the tank fills, mixing stops and solids settle to the bottom of the tank, where they are removed to an anaerobic digester.
The remaining water is filtered through a 50-micron screen decanter, then treated by membrane filtration.
The Clear Cove ClearCapture’s technology uses little-to-no biology. By removing the biology from wastewater operations, Food and Beverage producers can realize considerable financial and energy savings. Moreover, they can spare themselves the hassle of dealing with troublesome bugs, which enables them to do what they do best: produce Food and Beverage offerings.
Target Markets
Targeted adopters for the technology are F&B processors that generate a wastewater stream, ClearCove currently targets the following including but not limited to dairy processors, breweries, wineries, fruit/vegetable processing, soft drinks, seafood, meat processing, juice, and snack food processors.
Benefits for Tulare
Drought Resilience
ClearCapture technology reduces the use of potable water for non-potable uses and enables F&B facilities to recover up to 90% of their process wastewater to potable reuse levels. This in turn reduces the facilities’ water demand by up to 90%. Because water is used more efficiently, there is less demand for potable water used in non-potable settings.
Reduces Ratepayer Costs
Reduces costs of municipal wastewater system resulting from less wastewater being treated at the plant.
- Capital Savings: The ClearCapture technology is skid mounted and highly modular resulting in a lower capital investment than conventional technologies that typically require significant concrete tank construction.
- Highly Automated: The ClearCapture system is a highly automated system that can run unattended, requiring significantly less attention than conventional systems which typical require a full-time operator.
- Reduced O&M: The ClearCapture system requires significantly less O&M than conventional systems. The system utilizes common coagulants versus costly polymers, resulting in approximately 50% less chemical cost. The use of coagulants instead of cationic polymers also enables the ClearCapture system to utilize physical membranes downstream.
- Opex is up to 50% lower versus conventional technologies (due to a highly automated system) • Capex is 25% lower than conventional wastewater treatment technology
Costs: A smaller scale system for food and beverage manufacturing applications estimates at $500,000.
Savings: Recovering up to 90% of process water alone estimates to approximately $300,000 in operational cost savings alone. Electric savings from using a smaller fractional VFD hp pump motor for approximately 15 minutes for every hour of use compared to conventional 3 hp motor operating continuously results in an estimated energy savings of 50% from baseline conventional solutions.
Simple Payback: 1.6 years = [$500,000 / ($300,000 water savings + 21,000 kWh savings) *($0.15/kWh)
Supports Electric Reliability
The ClearCapture technology consumes approximately 50% less energy than conventional solutions for complete wastewater treatment down to reuse levels. The technology also reduces electric demand (kW) by using a 1 x ¼ hp pump 15 minutes per hour to treat process water effluent. The processing time can be scheduled during off-peak hours.
Due to the ClearCapture technology being a physical chemical process, the organics captured are of significantly higher methane potential than those that are degraded and captured in a biological process. The technology proposes to increase renewable energy production (methane production) by 240-520% through nonbiological (chemical and physical) removal of the biosolids. Thereby, preserving the energy value that is typically degraded by biological processes prior to digestion. The technology proposes to generate 2.2 GWh/year of electricity via microturbines with produced biogas.
Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The ClearCapture technology will result in significant Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction by reducing the load on the municipal wastewater treatment plant which typically utilize an aerobic process that consumes significant energy and produces significant GHG emissions. The technology also has a compact footprint, being the most space-efficient offering in the market today.
Reduces Regulatory and Environmental Risks
The technology has multiple health and safety benefits that include 99% coliform removal, up to 100% TSS removal, over 99% COD removal, up to 98% BOD removal and removal of other organics such as phosphorous.
