ICM/PBS personnel provided design, technical process specification, construction supervision, training and start-up services for the construction of an anaerobic Bio-Methanation system at the High Plains Fuel ethanol facility at York, NE.  ICM, Inc. was the lead contractor and provided all fabrication and on-site installation and construction for the project. 

     The project parameters were for the removal of up to 20,000 pounds per day of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) from a combined evaporator condensate/boiler blowdown stream of up to 400-gpm flow.  The system consists of four modular, pre-fabricated, 30,000 gal bio-reactors located outdoors while controls are indoors.  The project was built and commissioned in four months from contract signing. 

     Operator time is essentially two hours per day including laboratory checks.  The first year of operation was extremely successful as the waste water stream will vary in concentration from 2,000 mg/l to as much as 10,000 mg/l COD, resulting in operating space loading rates often in-excess of design.  The plant consistently reduces COD by 90% or more even under highly variable conditions.

     The system does not utilize an equalization basin, but remains stable under conditions of high input variation due primarily to the use of the unique ICM/PBS De-Carbonator in the recycle loop. 

     Bio-gas produced by the system is scrubbed of hydrogen sulfide with a simple iron sponge scrubber and used to supplement natural gas in the plants DDGS dryers.  Energy recovery is equivalent to approximately $48,000 per year.

     ICM/PBS personnel also provided all operating and maintenance manuals for the system along with documented drawings.  Permit modification support and compliance assurance for the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality were also provided by the ICM/PBS team.