Wastewater treatment services provider Bluewater Bio International has completed the installation of its Hybrid Bacillus Activated Sludge (HYBACS) process at the Botleng wastewater treatment plant, near Delmas, in Mpumalanga.

The plant, which serves about 17 000 residents, is now operational and producing a high-quality effluent. During its first three months of operation, tests on samples of treated effluent demonstrated that the quality exceeds all requirement parameters.
The total cost of the project is expected to be R55-million, following the completion of a second-phase extension planned by the municipality to bring the treatment capacity to 7 000 m³/d.

The project, secured through Bluewater Bio’s licensing agreement with Headstream Water Holdings, is for the extension of the Botleng sewage treatment plant, which was overloaded and in need of additional capacity.

Bluewater Bio technical director Dr Garry Hoyland tells Engineering News that modern market forces require successful wastewater treatment technology at reduced cost, energy consumption and carbon footprint.

“The HYBACS process satisfies all these requirements and is suitable at most sites for upgrading existing treatment plants to increase throughput or improve treated effluent quality without the need to construct supplementary large treatment tanks,” says Hoyland.

The extension, situated alongside the existing Botleng plant, entails a new 3 500 m3/d treatment plant in which the company’s patented HYBACS TSM process has been deployed in an installation that includes two of its shaft-mounted, advanced reactor technology units, which the company believes are fundamental to the process.

“We are delighted to have implemented the first deployment of our HYBACS technology in South Africa through our exclusive licensing agreement with Headstream. We have, in the meantime, secured a second order in the country for a plant which is currently under construction at Swartruggens, a town about 55 km from Rustenburg,” explains Bluewater CEO Daniel Ishag.

He adds that the company is working closely with Headstream to secure a third order, near Johannesburg, along with additional sales prospects in both South Africa and neighbouring countries.

“This first deployment of the HYBACS technology in South Africa will be shortly followed by the installation at Swartruggens. “We are also confident of securing our third and largest project in the third quarter of this year,” says Headstream Water nonexecutive chairperson Martie Janse van Rensburg.

She adds that Headstream is seeing a considerable amount of wider market interest and unsolicited enquiries as a result, and it expects accelerating adoption of the HYBACS technology in the country and the rest of the region.”

Headstream Water CEO Justin Moore says that the company is monitoring the technology and is happy that it is working well.

“As with any new plant, we have experienced mechanical teething problems, which were completely unrelated to our technology but a result of a contractor having installed things the wrong way,” explains Moore.

He adds that the company is pleased with the way HYBACS has been received in the country and, when it has more plants running, it will show the real capabilities of the technology.

“We have been keeping a low profile because there are a lot of sceptics out there and we want to have more plants running to show that the technology works and can be trusted.”

Hoyland notes that there is great interest in the HYBACS process in markets across the globe, although the emphasis changes depending on the region and even from site to site in the same region.

The company recently completed contracts for the Ministry of Works, in Bahrain, for the upgrade of the largest wastewater treatment plant in that country.

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