UK water company Aquabio and a Scotland distillery complete wastewater treatment project
Aquabio Ltd., based in Worcester, designed and built the whiskey industry’s first ever anaerobic membrane bioreactor system to treat wastewater at the Glenmorangie distillery in Scotland’s Northern Highlands. The anaerobic digestion plant at the Ross-shire distillery officially opened in summer 2017, using natural biological processes that both reduce output in distillery wastewater by up to 95 percent and create energy in the form of methane rich biogas. The biogas replaces some of the fossil fuels used at the distillery to heat the stills in which the spirit is made. In effect, the standard of the wastewater is improved.
An average of 10 to 12 liters of water are need to produce 1 liter of whiskey with the distillery producing 4 to 5 million liters of whiskey per annum. The microorganisms in Glenmorangie’s bioreactor are able to degrade 11.7 tons of chemical oxygen demand in the polluted wastewater every day. In the process, they produce 3,500 cubic meters of biogas every day.
Microbe Detectives appoints Ralph Wagner as vice president of business development
Ralph Wagner joined Microbe Detectives as the vice president of business development. He will be focusing on developing corporate partnerships to optimize wastewater treatment and resource recovery solutions in the areas of biofuels, anaerobic digestion and biological nutrient removal. Wagner will also develop partnerships in other industrial and energy markets. Wagner has over 30 years of water industry experience including over 20 years with Nalco in business unit sales and marketing leadership roles and corporate strategic marketing leadership roles. His water industry experience began at Linde Division UCC in R&D for UNOX and includes strategic marketing and innovation leadership roles at Siemens Water.
May River Capital completes acquisition of BJM Pumps
Private equity firm May River Capital, an investor in small-market industrial growth businesses, completed its acquisition of BJM Pumps, LLC. BJM Pumps represents the first acquisition that will form a new Industrial Pump Platform buildout by May River. Brad Sterner, a member of May River’s Executive Resource Group, will serve as executive chairman of the Pump Platform as well as interim CEO of BJM Pumps. This is the second May River investment platform involving Sterner, whose prior career included leadership roles with Emerson, Danaher, IDEX, Rexnord and Colfax.
