At a farm-based biogas plant in a remote area on Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, a Landia Gas Mix system has replaced mixers that were failing to cope with manure/agricultural feedstock.
Frustrated with the problems caused to the original mixers by the inevitable high-tier solids from farm waste, the farmer has switched to Landia’s externally-mounted GasMix system, which utilises the Chopper Pump (invented by Landia in 1950) to continuously break down heavy particles.
An added annoyance for the farmer was the fact that the mixers could not be retrieved for maintenance or repair without the very costly and laborious draining down of the digester.
Utilising two 18.5kW floor-mounted Landia Chopper Pumps (that only have to run for 15 minutes per hour) and venturi nozzles, the simple design of the Landia GasMix recirculates and homogenises digester sludge.
It injects the sludge back into the digester, increasing the active surface area for anaerobic bacteria with comprehensive vertical and horizontal mixing. There are no moving/wearing parts inside the digester, so all servicing can be conducted outside the tank, with no downtime.
“In such a remote, rural area,” said Fergus Clark from Landia (Asia/Pacific), “reliable equipment is essential. Many mixers are just fine in other, gentler applications, but at a biogas plant, unless they are designed for purpose, cannot deal properly with the grit, straw and solids that you always have to contend with in an agricultural feedstock.”
He added: “Now, with an efficient and highly dependable mixing system, the farmer has a perfectly healthy biogas plant that can utilise the much-needed excess heat for his cow sheds in Hokkaido’s very cold winters - and sell excess renewable energy to the grid.”
New Landia digester mixing system for farm-based plant in Japan
