The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati will be installing four Forty-X disc filters from Siemens Water Technologies at its Sycamore Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Part of a wastewater treatment improvement project, the filters will allow the plant to increase design flow capacity from 6 to 9 million gal per day (mgd), with a peak flow capacity of 18 mgd. The project also changes the plant’s process from conventional activated sludge treatment to advanced biological phosphorus removal.
The disc filters will replace the Sycamore Creek plant’s current sand filtration system, which has reached the end of its usefulness due to increased flow volumes. Three of the disc filters will be operational, with one remaining in standby mode. The Forty-X disc filters’ small footprint and versatile hydraulic capabilities will allow them to be easily retrofitted into the sand filters’ existing concrete tankage, using only four of the eight filter concrete basins to meet the increased plant capacity.
The Forty-X disc filter’s pleated filter media panel design provides 40% more filtration area compared to flat panel designs. According to Siemens, the inside-out filtration design offers many distinct advantages over the outside-in filtration technology. For example, all mechanical and functional hardware, as well as the filtration panels, are accessible from the top of the filter without draining the filter tank. The filter panel’s spoke design discourages floatable materials from catching and impeding water flow through the filter. Additionally, for safety and convenience, permanently mounted sliding covers allow operators easy access to all the filter components, as well as keeping blowing debris out of the tank and deterring algae growth within the filter tank.
Source: Siemens
