casestudy

Sewage treatment facility in the

United Arab Emirates undergoes
an expansion
The phase 6 extension to the Sharjah sewage treatment works in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently been opened, adding an additional
37 000 m3 per day of sewage processing capacity to the existing facility.
The expanded works was required to cope with the emirate’s growing
population, which is fuelling a boom in infrastructure projects. The
£18 million [US$ 32.5 million] phase 6 project includes a new inlet works,
activated sludge aeration lanes, final effluent clarification, rapid gravity sand
filtration, a final effluent pumping station with disinfection pipework, sludge
thickening and dewatering, ancillary services and control mechanisms.

CWa Services Ltd and its sister company, below the screens, where it is transported and

A Consolidated Contractors International Co

(CCIC), won the £18 million process design
and engineering award for the project, in con-
junction with Halcrow International Partnership,
from the local government authority in Sharjah, UAE.
The municipality of Sharjah is growing so rapidly
that its population is predicted to rise to 800 000
in the near future from its present figure of
500 000 people. As the emirate continues to
grow, the infrastructure and facilities need to grow
with it, which is why the local government decided
to give the go-ahead to the extension project at the
Sharjah sewage treatment works (STW).
The total treatment capacity of the newly
extended facility, which officially opened in June of
this year, now stands at 148000 m3 of sewage
per day, which is more than enough to cater for
the predicted rise in the number of inhabitants.
More than 50% of the entire emirates’ sewage
needs will be met from this one facility, including
the needs of Sharjah city itself, the largest
conurbation in the province.
Process design
To ensure that workflows to the Sharjah STW are
proportionally balanced all incoming streams of
sewage have been combined into a new pressure
sump at the inlet stage. This divides incoming
sewage between the existing phases of the
facility and the new phase 6 extension works.
Flow passing to the phase 6 works passes
through two fine screens and a grit removal
process. The two wedge wire screens can handle
flowrates of 500 l/s and 900 l/s and remove
solids measuring 6 mm or more. All the screened
material is discharged to a compactor located
compacted prior to its discharge into a skip for
later removal from the site.
The screened flow feeds into two radial
detritors for the grit removal process. The flow
entering each unit passes through a set of flow
deflectors to ensure even flow distribution
across the detritor systems. Each detritor is
capable of removing grit from flows of up to
900 l/s. The detritors consist of a power
operated grit collecting system, together with
cleaning and discharging mechanisms. Grit
settles out on the base of the detritor and is
moved by a scraper to the outside of the tank,
where it can be removed by a reciprocating
elevator mechanism to a skip ready for disposal.
Any residual organics are washed from the
system by a flow of washwater from an in-built
pump system. ACWa and CCIC selected all the
filtration and separation equipment used on this
project either from their own systems or from
outside suppliers.
Activated sludge aeration & settlement
The screened sewage at the Sharjah STW is
combined with return activated sludge (RAS) in a
pre-mixing tank, prior to dividing the flow into
four aeration lanes. Each lane measures 58 m
by 11.6 m, with a working depth of 4.5 m, and
contains a fine bubble diffused aeration system
to provide biological treatment of the sewage.
The aeration lanes are split into five sections
with the first section operating as an anoxic zone
to allow de-nitrification and to improve sludge
settlement. The remaining four sections have a
progressively reduced aeration capacity in order
to optimize process control.

20 October 2004 ISSN 0015-1882/04 © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
 casestudy
The mixed liquor from the
aeration lanes gravitates
towards a distribution chamber
to be evenly split and fed into
four settlement tanks, with a
diameter of 25 m. Each tank is
fitted with tri-arm scrapers. RAS
from the settlement tanks
gravitates, via actuated
bellmouths, to a return sludge
wet well, where four pumps,
operating on a
duty/assist/standby basis,
control its return to the pre-
mixing chamber. Surplus sludge
and scum removal is also
included in the wet well design.

Sludge thickening &

dewatering The new Phase 6 extension plant at the Sharjah STW adds
an additional 37,000 m3 of sewage processing capacity to
The sludge treatment capacity
of the works has been increased
by the installation of three belt
thickeners and two additional filter belt presses.
These systems ensure that the additional sludge
produced at the expanded facility can be
dewatered, and they enable optimum operating
conditions for the aeration system. Most sludge
is, however, still sent back to the pre-mixing tank
as RAS.
The thickness of the surplus sludge is con-
trolled by three flexible progressing cavity type
pumps equipped with belt-driven variable speed
devices, which allow adjustments to be made.
The surplus activated sludge (SAS) can be
thickened from 0.5% dry solids to 4% dry solids.
The belt thickeners are housed in a new sludge
thickener building. Prior to thickening a
polyelectrolyte solution is dosed into the feed
sludge to enhance its dewatering capability. The
polyelectrolyte make-up, storage and dosing
system is also installed in the thickener building.
The belt thickeners are arranged in three
streams. Each stream consists of a belt
thickener with its ancillary equipment, namely its
PC sludge feed pump and polyelectrolyte dosing
pump. A similar package has also been installed
on the original thickening facility at the Sharjah
STW to cope with the increased throughput. It
will work in conjunction with the Phase 6
systems. Washwater for the belt thickeners is
provided from the washwater ring main at
the STW.
Finally, thickened sludge is mixed in the sludge
consolidation tanks. From these tanks it is
pumped to the existing sludge drying beds
and for further dewatering processes. The
resultant dry sludge cake is then taken off site
for disposal.
the existing works.
Tertiary treatment
To ensure the quality of the final effluent from the
STW, ten rapid gravity sand filters have also been
installed, together with a screw pump lift station to
feed the filters and air scouring and backwash
systems. The sand removes any solids carried over
from the final settlement tanks. After the sand
filtration stage, the flow is disinfected with
ultraviolet radiation from UV lamps and pumped into
storage ready for distribution to irrigation projects
in the emirate of Sharjah.
Control system
As part of the process design contract, ACWa was
responsible for designing and overseeing the
installation of a new SCADA system at the Sharjah
STW. The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
System connects the various PLC’s from phases 1-
5 with the new Phase 6 extention works. The
enhanced control system gives the operators on-
site monitoring capabilities and set point command
control over each area of the plant.
The expanded Sharjah STW facility is now fully
operational and will provide the inhabitants of the
emirate with enough clean water for many years
to come.
Contact:
ACWa Services Ltd,
ACWa House, Keighley Road,
Skipton, North Yorkshire,
BD23 2UE, UK.
Tel: +44 1756 794794
Fax: +44 1756 790898
E-mail: acwa@acwa.co.uk
Website: www.acwa.co.uk

Filtration+Separation October 2004 21