Waste and wastewater management is an ever-present issue for dairy and food processors. However, it also presents many opportunities for cost reduction, environmental stewardship, and capturing renewable energy. Dairy and dairy byproducts present unique challenges for wastewater treatment that are often solved, at least in part, with anaerobic digestion.
According to recent data, the United States has approximately 1,269 wastewater treatment plants equipped with anaerobic digesters for processing wastewater solids. It's important to note that while these facilities have anaerobic digestion capabilities, not all utilize the resulting biogas. Approximately 860 of these plants actively use the biogas they produce, while others may flare it or not capture it for energy use. Anaerobic digestion adds value to dairy processors by significantly reducing wastewater surcharges, reducing waste biomass disposal costs, minimization of operational attentional requirements, providing process stability, generating methane that can be captured for beneficial reuses, often acting as a first treatment step towards reducing the strength of wastewater such that it can be land applied or treated further with aerobic methods, and diversifying revenue streams for those users who accept other organic wastes to their digester and collect tipping fees.
Join us if you are currently operating your own wastewater pretreatment system, considering installing your own wastewater pretreatment system, or are interested in anaerobic biotechnology.
During this session, we will go over methods of improving digester efficiency, common challenges in digester management, key signs and signals that your digester may be unhealthy, tips and tricks to improve methane production, and some of the newer anaerobic digestion technologies.
Presented by:
Speaker:
John Sturdivant
Lead Wastewater Engineer, Imperion
Moderated by:
Mike Aquino
Director, ESG
Registration
Fees: $0 Members, $99 Nonmembers
Questions: If you have questions or need assistance with the registration process, please contact IDFA at 202-737-4332 or registrar@idfa.org.