Dissolved Air Flotation

Schlumberger, one of the world’s leading providers of technology for reservoir characterisation, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry, contacted MAK Water to design and manufacture a water recycling system for their new facility. Two separate equipment washbays, with differing waste streams, required two separately designed systems to achieve the strict treated water quality requirements. A customised Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) plant was required for the main equipment washbay and a customised Multimedia Filtration (MMF) plant was required for the pressure test bay. A high level of plant customisation, technical capabilities and experience was required to achieve the complex treated water quality requirements.

QR National (Queensland Rail National, now Aurizon Holdings) required a wastewater treatment solution, to treat effluent from the truck and container wash bay at their transport depot, to a standard complying with Brisbane City Council’s trade waste guidelines. As a renowned specialist in design and manufacture of wash bay wastewater treatment systems, MAK Water was engaged by QR National to design, manufacture, install and commission a plant, to treat 10,000 litres per day of combined truck and shipping container wash bay wastewater.

A bakery facility in Adelaide had wastewater from the baking process discharging into the local sewage network. The bakery needed to improve its trade wastewater treatment system in order to comply with the local authority discharge permits. MAK Water was commissioned to supply and install an onsite wastewater treatment plant. Suspended solids, biological oxygen demand (BOD), and oil and grease were the main contaminants that needed to be reduced through the treatment process.

A large abattoir in New South Wales was having issues with their Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) treatment plant that is used for removing tallow from their wastewater stream. Poor understanding of the operation of the DAF and little maintenance over the years had seen the asset and its components become blocked and damaged. The abattoir approached MAK Water to source replacement components for their plant that had been purchased from an overseas vendor and help to get the DAF operational again. MAK Water was selected as the preferred service provider because of its extensive experience with DAF plants in wastewater treatment applications and its ability to source the specialist components required.

As part of a facility upgrade, Hastings Deering required a new wash bay water recycling system at its Rockhampton facility. The wash down water was largely contaminated with dirt and soil, but there was also a small amount of oil and grease entrained in the wash down water that needed to be removed prior to re-use.  Bench testing demonstrated that Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) was the lowest cost solution.

To maximise the efficiency of wash down operations at its Brisbane Barracks, the Department of Defence decided to consolidate 18 vehicle and equipment wash down stations into one facility. Key operational goals for the project included minimising town water consumption, reducing load on the sewerage treatment system and ensuring all relevant environmental and occupation health and safety requirements were met.