At the finish line: Nizhnekamskneftekhim starts pilot testing at biological treatment plant

“All works are going according to the schedule”

The biological treatment facilities of Nizhnekamskneftekhim are to be launched before the end of the summer. All construction and installation works have been completed at the site, and the commissioning is underway, as well as the final works on the mechanics, electrics, automation and instrumentation are underway. The reconstruction of biological treatment facilities (BOS) has become one of the most ambitious measures in the field of environmental protection for petrochemists. Here they are introducing modern technology for wastewater treatment, which will ultimately improve the environmental situation in Nizhnekamsk.

The BOS holds meetings, where they address operational issues arising in the course of the reconstruction. Recently, the meeting has been held by Director General of Nizhnekamskneftehim PJSC Azat Bikmurzin.

“Frankly speaking, a lot has been done, and this work has been carried out at a qualitative level. The professional work of our contractors should be highlighted. If we talk about the final result, what the reconstruction of the BOS will give us, then the company's specialists have chosen such a biofilter system for the mechanical air purification unit that will increase its efficiency up to 95%,” said Azat Bikmurzin, the director general of Nizhnekamskneftekhim PJSC.

Now, the commissioning works are underway on the assembled equipment, the landscaping works are being completed.

“All works are going according to the schedule, which has been approved earlier. The pilot tests will begin soon, they will allow us to carry out the equipment setup and to reach the indicators designed for the project,” Sergey Boyarkin, the head of the department of water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment at Nizhnekamskneftekhim, told.

The second stage of the reconstruction of the mechanical cleaning unit of chemical contaminated wastewater began last year. Over this time, the mechanical cleaning of chemically contaminated runoff unit was rebuilt and equipped: sand extractor, the manifolds switching camera, an additional treatment stage has been included. This unit receives water from the industrial site, so the drains are saturated with volatile hydrocarbons. To eliminate them for the reconstruction, they have chosen the technology of biofiltration. They built preaerators for it — it is round structures where volatile hydrocarbons from wastewater. Then they will come to biofilters, where they will be neutralized by special microorganisms. The whole complex is equipped with the most modern equipment and is airtight — smells that used to go into the atmosphere are now collected and neutralized.

More than three billion rubles for the reconstruction of biological treatment facilities

Biological treatment facilities belong to Nizhnekamskneftekhim, but at the same time serve the entire city and the industrial site. Up to 213,000 cubic metres of effluents can be cleaned here a day: most of the effluents come from 60 enterprises located on the industrial site and are the consumers of the BOS, the rest are municipal effluents from all city apartments, organizations and enterprises. All of them go through a multi-level cleaning system and then dumped into the Kama River. In order to increase the level of wastewater treatment, in 2015 Nizhnekamskneftekhim started the reconstruction of biological treatment facilities. The first phase was completed in 2016 — during this time, the site for mechanical purification of sewage was being upgrated. For it, the company directed 518,57 million rubles. The second will require investments of about 1 billion rubles, including in 2019 — more than 400 million rubles. The total cost of modernization of the BOS will be more than 3 billion rubles.

Additional “branch” of the collector will be launched this year

In parallel with the implementation of the second phase of the reconstruction of the BOS, the company is building the off-site collector of industrial rainwater drainage. This is an additional 15 km long pipeline, which will connect the industrial site and the biological treatment facilities. There is the collector in Nizhnekamsk, but it was constructed more than 30 years ago, and because of active development of the Nizhnekamsk industrial hub, the loading on it constantly increases. Therefore, the company's management decided to lay an additional “line”. It will significantly increase not only the capacity of collectors, but also the safety of wastewater transportation from the industrial site to biological treatment facilities.

The construction of the collector takes place simultaneously in several places by ground and underground methods, which will lead to a significant acceleration of the commissioning of the facility. On the part of biological treatment facilities, the work is carried out in the traditional way — the workers dig an open trench into which the pipe is laid. On the part of the industrial site, the pipeline is to be laid at a depth of five to 17 metres, so the branch is laid in a “closed” way — the microtunneling technology does not require excavation of trenches along the entire length of the pipe, in addition, it has a high accuracy of penetration, so the deviation from the design axis is a maximum of 30 millimetres, and the speed of tunneling reaches several tens of metres a day.

The construction of the reservoir began in January and over this time more than 70% of the pipeline has been laid. Both plots are laid towards each other and in the result they form a unified network for transportation of industrial rainwater. All works on the construction of the collector are financed by Nizhnekamskneftekhim — more than 1,5 billion rubles have been allocated for this enterprise. The facility is planned to be launched before the end of the year.