Festo ensures its flow: Fuzzy Filters® in Barntrup provide high quality drinking water

Published: 13th April 2021 | Issue 62

Pneumatic linear actuator DLP - They are acting directly on the slide plate and ensure the reliable opening and closing of gates valves.

Pneumatic quarter turn actuator DAPS - The robustness and torque gradation ensure safety for valves with a swivel angle limited to 90, such as ball valves and butterfly valves

Every year, up to 8,000 tons of pharmaceuticals and ten tons of microplastics reach the river Rhine in Germany. Removing them from the water is an impossible challenge for conventional waste water treatment plants.

High costs are remaining ...

and a large part of the micropollutants.

Trace substances and microplastics up to five millimeters in size can only be removed in a fourth cleaning stage. Powdered activated carbon is added to the water. The pollutants are deposited on it and are bound in the coal. The activated carbon must also be removed afterwards. A process that requires a big sedimentation tank and uses a disproportionate amount of space and investment costs. This removes about 80 % of the pollutants. On the other hand, sewage treatment plants without a fourth cleaning stage hold back just 30 % of the trace substances detected.

Water of 80 % cleanliness? That was still not enough for Barntrup in northern Germany. Therefore, the small town acted accordingly and developed the world's first cleaning system with Fuzzy Filters® from Bosman Watermanagement. They purify the water using synthetic spherical fibers that eliminate up to 95 % of all micropollutants – including the activated carbon, which previously occupied a complete basin on its own.

This is where Festo comes in. The pneumatic quarter turn actuators of the type DAPS and the linear actuators DLP are part of the solution. With them, the automated opening and closing of all butterfly and gate valves can be guaranteed for a smooth cleaning process. The actuators are controlled by modular MPA valve terminals with multipole. These valve terminals and service units from the MS6 series are securely protected in control cabinets that Festo has delivered, ready for installation. 'In our water and wastewater projects, pneumatics is the first choice over electrical solutions because pneumatic components are significantly cheaper and much more compact than electrical ones,' explains Frank Waermer, managing director and consulting engineer at the Danjes engineering office in Detmold. This way, Festo ensures that the drinking water for the people in Barntrup literally stays in flow, even in the challenging environment of waste water treatment.