Summary

A water reclamation facility installed a high-efficiency process to remove water from the plant's waste materials. The process utilizes a screw press and microwave dryer to eliminate pathogen content while reducing weight and volume of the material. The end product is environmentally safe and nutrient-rich and has a variety of beneficial uses. Prior to the installation of this new process, the waste material was disposed of at a great cost to the municipality.
A different manufacturer provided each component of the process and each company had varying means and levels of monitoring and control systems. Prism Systems was hired by the design engineering firm to integrate the various pieces of process equipment into a supervisory control and monitoring system.

Solution

Prism Systems served as the coordinator between all the manufacturers in regards to their monitoring and control systems. We became involved in the project during the design stage. Our responsibilities included reviewing submittals, making recommendations for controls hardware, detailing networking and wiring requirements, and cross-referencing the many signals to be exchanged between the various manufacturers. We also provided and programmed the hardware and software which served as the supervisory system. This supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system was the primary interface for the plant operators to control the new Biosolids Treatment Facility. Automated reports were developed for ease of data analysis and environmental reporting.

Customer Benefits

• The engineer recognized a cost-savings by having all manufacturers aware of the controls platform and network interfaces during the early stages of design
• The operations personnel efficiently control the biosolids treatment through a user-friendly interface
• The process dramatically reduces material transportation and disposal costs and keeps the material out of industrial landfills

Technologies

• A-B Compactlogix PLC
• A-B Powerflex variable frequency drives
• Ethernet I/P
• Wonderware Archestra System Platform software
• Wonderware Historian
• Managed Ethernet switches with fiber optic connection