수에즈 글로벌 수처리기업 자회사인 양조우 시노프렌치(Yangzhou Sino French)는, 중국 장수성 양조우시의 슬러지건조 플랜트 30년 운영 계약을 2.34억 달러에 체결했다.

이 계약의 목적은 양조우 지역 450만 명의 주민 및 산업체에서의 발생폐수로부터 슬러지를 건조하는 것으로, 2015년 초기 300톤/일 용량으로 시작하여 최종 500톤/일 규모로 확장될 예정이다.

중국의 12차 5개년 계획의 하나는 2015년까지 도시용 슬러지 처리비율을 70%-80%로 증가시키는 것이다.

이 계획에 따라 시노프렌치 사는 양조우시의 발전소 인근에 위치한 기술개발지역단지 내에 슬러지처리 플랜트를 건립한다.

최종 결정된 공정은 인근의 폐수처리장에서 발생되는 미생물 폐수슬러지에서 우선 오염물질을 제거하고 안정화 후 건조시키며, 건조된 슬러지 물질은 인근의 발전소로 보내져 발전 연소용으로 기존 석탄과 혼합되어 사용된다.

Joint venture Yangzhou Sino French Environment Company (Yangzhou Sino French) has won a 30-year contract worth €234 million to operate the Yangzhou sludge-drying plant.

The purpose of the contract is to dry sludge from the wastewater treatment plants serving Yangzhou’s 4.5 million inhabitants and its industrial customers for the next 30 years. The project will start in 2015 with an initial treatment capacity of 300 metric tons/day, eventually handling 500 metric tons/day to match the city’s economic and urban development.

Yangzhou lies in the heart of Jiangsu province. With its fast economic growth (GDP up 12% in 20132), the production of wet sludge from wastewater treatment plants should reach 200 metric tons a day in the coming months.

The "12th Five-Year Plan" has set a clear target to increase municipal sludge treatment to 70%-80% by 2015. The first sludge drying plant was opened in 2009 to treat sludge from the wastewater treatment plant at Chongqing Tangjiatuo.

As part of this latest contract, SUEZ subsidiary Yangzhou Sino French will build a sludge treatment plant in Yangzhou’s technological and economic development zone, near the electricity plant.

The process adopted will decontaminate and stabilise the biological waste produced by neighbouring wastewater treatment plants, notably those at Tangwang and Liuwei. The dried sludge will then be routed to the adjacent electricity power plant to be mixed with coal for combustion.

Yan Junquan, chief executive officer of Yangzhou Jieyuan Discharge Water Company, said: “The secondary pollution produced by the landfilling of untreated wet sludge is a growing concern.”