As part of a drive to reduce maintenance downtime across the board, Welsh Water has installed an innovative EZstrip Cake Pump from framework supplier NOV Mono at its sewage treatment works in Cardigan, West Wales.
The Mono progressing cavity (PC) Cake Pump has been installed to transfer 22 - 28% sludge cake from the site's centrifuge dewatering process to a storage skip for later removal from site.
Jonathon Kelly, Project Engineer at Welsh Water, commented: "I am pleased to say that the new EZstrip cake pump from Mono is performing well and the operations team are very happy with it. The installation of the new EZ strip cake pump will ensure the continuous reliability of the sludge treatment plant on site & reduce potential plant downtime allowing sludge to be processed with a reduced risk to the wastewater compliance on site.
Specifically designed to minimise the time and cost involved in maintaining a progressing cavity pump, the new EZstripTM cake pump can be completely stripped down and rebuilt in just 15 minutes, without the need to disconnect or remove any pipe work.
The new pump features a purposely designed feed chamber that is disconnected by removing only a few screws and allows access to the pin joint area for removal of any blockages or compressed cake. Once the rotor assembly is disconnected from the screw conveyor, the rotor and stator can be removed.
It also features a large auger inlet and screw conveyor which can be extended to the compression area to help push the sludge cake into the cavities of the rotor and stator and provide consistent pumping. A side inlet port allows the addition of thin sludge for blending applications or for draining the pump.
The range is available in cast iron, with a choice of rotor and stator materials as well as a variety of hopper sizes and has a capacity of up to 49 m3/h and 24 bar pressure. Typical applications include thickened sludge cake (up to 40% dry solids content), dewatered sludge, lime powder dosing, sludge blending and barrier layer injection.