GLV Inc. has acquired the municipal and industrial wastewater sludge treatment technology developed by Elcotech Technologies, a young company based in Boucherville, Quebec.
Conventional mechanical dewatering technologies can only extract the free water (i.e., the water not adsorbed by biosolids), with the result that the water content of the residual material remains high, at 65-85 per cent. Certain thermal processes yield better dewatering rates through water evaporation, but these processes are costly in terms of capital and energy. Elcotech’s technology uses electro-osmosis to separate water molecules from biosolids, thereby reducing the residual material volume with minimal energy consumption. In addition, the technology can eliminate pathogens and odours, resulting in a higher-quality biomass that could be used for agricultural land spreading or as biofuel for the production of green energy.
