Wetskills Hungary 2019 – by Evelin Németh
After a really eventful weekend we was going to Csepel Island where located the Waste Water Treatment Plant from Budapest Waterworks. I would like to write a short summary about the treatment plant as a reminder. It was created the largest investment of the „ÉlőDuna” (Living Danube) project. This project was the most significant environmental protection investment carried out between 2004 and 2010. Before the plant started its operations, only 50% Budapest’s wastewater had been treated. This resulted in a degree of water contamination that the self-cleaning capacity of the Danube could no longer handle. Moreover this threatened the extinction of several local fish species. Thanks to the operation of the plant the 50% proportion increased to 95%.
The collected wastewater reaches the central wastewater treatment plant through two channel pairs running under the Danube. With a daily hydraulic capacity of 350,000 m3 in dry weather, the plant treats an avarage of 250,000 m3 wastewater per day. As a result of the project, a completely enclosed (covered) plant was built, requiring quite technical solutions.
We had a tour with Enikő who is operating engineer in the plant. She was talking about the way of water and the way of sludge. The incoming raw wastewater from Kelenföld and Ferencváros first flows through fine grids of rods. After these are the main technology steps:
· sand and fat traps;
· cleaning with active sludge, connected with post-settlers and disinfection basins;
· gravity concentrators for the raw sludge and belt filters for the excess sludge;
· sludge pasteurization and thermophilic sludge digestion;
· extraction of the biogas energy content;
· sludge dewaterint using a centrifuge and sludge storage in silos.
After the tour we had a short lunch break. In the afternoon we participated a pitch and poster training by Marcel. Personally it was very useful because I didn’t know what is the pitch and how to prepare it for example. We analyzed some of them so we can collect good ideas for our project.
