2 April 2025, VIRTUAL
Format: Online
Times: 9:30 AM – 16:30 PM
Fee: £350 plus VAT for 1-person, (includes slides presented).
Course Overview
Over 80% of sewage sludge produced in the UK is treated by anaerobic digestion and advanced anaerobic digestion. The biogas produced is a renewable energy source and can be used to generate electricity and heat or converted into biomethane for grid injection, whilst the biosolids produced are generally dewatered and applied to land.
Operators and managers are faced with the challenges of increasing energy production whilst minimising the costs associated with digestate disposal/recycling. There are many factors that influence the financial balance. With a competitive bioresources market delivering upon innovation and efficiency, now more than ever it is vital to understand revenue and cost drivers at the site and business levels.
This course is aimed at operators, optimisers, process scientists and managers in the wastewater/sewage sludge sector.
Course Aim
Each one tonne of dry solids produced from wastewater contains 4-7 MWh of energy, the quantity recovered is a function of the digestion process, asset condition and quality of feedstock. The digestate produced is both a cost to handle and an opportunity to recover nutrients and produce a compliant product.
This course is designed to help attendees understand and act upon the factors that influence biogas production, sludge dewaterability, biosolids compliance, cost and revenue generation.
Learning is delivered through a combination of lectures, case studies and worked examples.
Course Programme
Who should attend?
This course covers the fundamentals of anaerobic digestion whilst drawing upon an array of practical case studies. As such the course has wide appeal being highly relevant to operational teams, process scientists and managers looking to upskill and optimise, technology providers seeking to understand where products fit in the market, researchers and innovators wishing to understand the latest challenges facing the water industry and anyone interested in understanding the market and investment drivers.
Trainer Profile
Matthew Smyth BSc, MRes, MBA, MCIWEM CSci CWEM
Director, Aqua Environment Solutions Limited
E. matthew.smyth@aquaenvironment.co.uk
Matt has been in wastewater and sludge for over twenty-five years and works with water companies, industry and waste producers to develop and implement solutions. He has delivered training courses for fifteen years to thousands in our industry.
In the late 1990’s he began his career working on pilot and full-scale Sequencing Batch Reactors, developing, then commissioning carbonaceous and nitrification control strategies, that were widely adopted in plants in the UK and Ireland. He has subsequently worked closely with many anaerobic and advanced anaerobic digestion facilities treating sewage sludges, wastewater and food waste materials; dewatering the digestate and handling the liquors produced. He presents and publishes regularly at industry recognized conferences chairs Aqua Enviro’s European Biosolids & Organics and European Wastewater Management Conferences.
Outside of training Matt manages interesting technical projects. His continued exposure to a wide range of investigative, challenging and solution orientated projects is brought into training to ensure that the material presented is current and relevant.
Why invest in Anaerobic Digestion Training?
Ready for the next level of training?
This training dovetails with our Wastewater Treatment and Activated Sludge courses. To understand, evaluate and optimise any site we must be able to interrogate individual plant items and how the performance of each influences adjacent process units and the performance as a whole. Wastewater treatment is quite literally a case of the toe bone being connected to the foot bone, to the heel bone, ankle, leg, knee, thigh, hip and everything else.
Case studies and worked examples at the core of the training
Irrespective of whether you are working on a domestic wastewater treatment site or industrial effluent treatment plant, this joined up approach is valid. Here are some case study examples:
Do you have a challenge with your Anaerobic Digester right now?
Get in touch to see how we can help and embed learning in the process.
Email: enquiries@aquaenviro.co.uk