Aeration: what does it take?

Aeration is the process of supplying air to the insufficiently oxygenated layers of materials. This can be for example the oxygenation of sewage sludge in wastewater treatment plants, fish farms, or garden ponds. Do you know which aeration equipment to use? Let's find out in the following article!

The reason for the aeration?

In the case of WWTPs, sludge aeration is part of the biological treatment of wastewater following its initial pre-treatment. The principle of biological treatment is to set up an environment suitable for nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria. The amount of these bacteria depends on the amount of oxygen in the sludge. But aeration is not just about WWTPs: we also need to get air into fish nurseries or garden ponds. During aeration, an air stream is pushed to the bottom of the tank through aeration elements or diffusers. These are tubes or discs that blow bubbles of oxygen into the water. But in addition to these, we need a device to drive the air: this is a COMPRESSOR, or also an AIR BLOWER.

How to transfer air?

Compressors and air blowers are air transfer devices. They differ only in the operating pressures they use to transport air. You can commonly use a compressor in two ways: As a vacuum pump creates a vacuum that draws air or other gases out of a confined space, or, and this is the case with aeration, as an air blower to create positive pressure and deliver the air somewhere.

What about the type of air blower?

There are a plethora of air blowers that can be used for aeration. It always depends on the purpose, i.e. the volume of the tank or the level in the tank. The more voluminous the tank, the higher the water pressure and the more powerful the device we have to use.

Diaphragm air blowers

The diaphragm blower works on the principle of an electromagnetic vibration motor, a circular diaphragm attached to the oscillating core of a static coil is bent alternately to one side and the other, and together with its bending, the air is sucked in on one side and discharged on the another. This type of air blower is used in the aeration of small domestic wastewater treatment plants, aquariums, fish nurseries, and garden ponds. In brief, for all smaller installations of a domestic nature and hobby home use. This is because it is smaller device with not very large flow rate. The biggest advantage of diaphragm compressors is their versatility, long service life, reliability, and significantly cheaper operation compared to compressors with conventional motors, thanks to lower power consumption.

Vane vacuum pumps

The vane pump stands out for its ability to develop relatively high pressure, for example, compared to diaphragm blowers or side channel blowers. Overall, this powerful device is quite robust and easy to service and is also compact. It is typically used for aeration of smaller domestic WWTPs, with a capacity of 50 to 100 PE.

Roots blower

The Roots blower as two specially shaped rotors, which you can imagine as gears transporting compressed air. They work on the principle of positive displacement pumping, and their advantage is that they achieve a high output pressure even at low speeds. Like other blowers, Roots are most commonly used in wastewater treatment to aerate sewage tanks. They are also up to the task in medium and large WWTPs, in large fish farms, and in lagoons with volumes of thousands of cubic meters where water is stored before further processing. In terms of pressure, they belong to the medium range, with 400 to 600 millibars, which is usually sufficient for aeration up to a surface height of 3 to 5 (theoretically 4 to 6) meters. In applications where even the smallest Roots blower is too large, then smaller vane pumps come into play.

According to the stereotype, Roots blowers are noisy devices that cannot work without acoustically insulated walls or enclosures, with the associated problem of overheating. But our Roots blowers break this myth! We have designed a slow-speed blower that is guaranteed to run many times quieter than devices made by our competitors.

Side channel blowers

Side channel blowers convey air using a principle based on increasing the velocity of the medium. Two dampers installed on the suction and discharge side guarantee continuous and quiet operation. The side channel blower is a simple and economical solution. As long as the conditions of use are observed (allowed outlet pressure must not be exceeded, otherwise damage can occur), it is simple to maintain. Like other blowers, it is used for aeration in WWTPs, fish farms, and other water tanks.

Do you also deal with aeration? We have the right air blower for you!