Successful trial of
a self-cleaning belt filter

Waste Water specialist, Jacopa, trialled their ‘Sobye’ self-cleaning belt filter at our Development Centre to help revolutionise the way waste water is treated – with impressive results.

The brainchild of Jacopa’s Swedish partner, Nordic Water, the Sobye filter is designed to remove solids and particles from waste water, and provide a compact solution in primary waste treatment by removing the need for settlement tanks.  

Settlement tanks are used as the first stage of waste water treatment after the removal of rags and grit at the inlet works. Whilst this treatment method is normally robust, inlet works failures, high loads and scum can often create issues.

Jacopa wanted to test their factory-built Sobye self-cleaning belt filter, already in use at sites across Scandinavia, for suitability in the UK market.

Over the course of five weeks, Jacopa trialled their filter unit on a dedicated inlet at the treatment works adjacent to our Development Centre, ensuring a continuous stream of live, screened effluent.  Once the primary effluent was treated by the filter, the remaining waste water was returned to normal downstream plant treatment processes.

By operating under live conditions, Jacopa conducted scenario testing under a range of different flow rates and trial parameters such as solids retention and effluent characteristics.

Feedback from industry stakeholders and potential customers was also key. To facilitate this, we worked with Jacopa to host a series of Demonstration Days at our Development Centre.

The results of the trial demonstrated that the Sobye filter provides a least the equivalent performance to primary settlement tanks. As the filter is modular and compact, it can be used where space is limited, is cheaper to run and has a reduced carbon footprint.