Case Study Victoria’s Largest Brewery

What were the challenges? 

The customer had an existing water treatment plant that was aging, no longer supported, and led to several issues. Despite using carbon filters, the plant experienced significant water wastage and high levels of microbial contamination within the treatment process.

The membranes they were using on their existing water treatment plant were not compatible with chlorine. Carbon beds were used upstream for dichlorination, which added to the fouling and contamination of the water plant.

What was the solution?

Prior to conducting a site audit, we had anticipated replacing the water treatment system modules. Upon inspection, we determined that the aging plant was no longer viable due to obsolete parts needing replacement and significant time to carry out the works. BHF were able to supply a new turnkey system within the limitations of their budget.

Partnering with Scinor, using a chlorine tolerant UF membrane, we eliminated the requirement for carbon pretreatment and minimised the footprint. We split the backwash, which would go to a secondary UF treatment to recover the water and feed back into the water treatment plant. This reduced the trade waste volume.

Downstream of the UF plant, BHF provided a proprietary sintered Supercarb™ carbon cartridges, which allowed for efficient cleaning, heat sanitisation, and chlorine removal.

What were the specific results achieved?

The final product water quality has consistently performed to within the customer purified water specification for the brewing water process. This included the removal of microorganisms and chlorine.

There was less water going to waste, improved plant uptime, water recovery >95%, all with a smaller footprint. We also increased the plant capacity by 30%. While previously not managed, carbon is now heat sanitised biannually.

The new system operation was integrated into their existing plant automation.