Challenge
As a result of a fire at an industrial site in Amsterdam in early 2011, contaminated fire extinguishing water had flowed into nearby ditches. This fire extinguishing water was then pumped away and stored temporarily in river vessels. HMVT was asked to look into how this water could be purified with a mobile installation and how much it would cost. This involved 2400 m³ of water contaminated with a diverse cocktail of substances. The challenge with this project was that the purification system had to be operational within half a week and that the discharge of the purified water into the sewer system would have to be halted if the maximum capacity of the sewage system were to be exceeded.

Solution
Our solution was a mobile water purification system that consisted of two influent buffers for the sedimentation of sludge particles and capturing oil, followed by a large stripping tower and a wet activated carbon filter. With the exception of cleaning and usage costs of activated carbon, our solution involved a fixed price offer per week of maintenance. The installation was designed in such a way that the system would automatically switch off if the water level inside the sewage system became too high.

Results
The installation had a capacity of approximately 20 m³/hour. The water was purified to the customer’s satisfaction within approximately 2 weeks.