Clean vehicles, clean water - innovative M&C technology!

Some 1.5 million cubic meters of waste water are treated every year at Frankfurt Airport. Since last year, airport operator Fraport has been using an emulsion separatingplant in its special-purpose and service vehicle washing system which has improved operational reliability and adherence to limit values as well as driving down costs. Instead of
visiting regularly every one or two weeks, the disposal vehicle now only needs to come once in three months.

The innovative measurement and control technology used in the treatment plant installed by Swiss supplier Aquasant was provided by the Siemens Industry Automation Division.

A member of the Fraport workforce covers a good 50 kilometers every day checking the water

supply and treatment plants installed at this busy airport, carrying out round-the-clock surveillance to ensure that stipulated purification standards are adhered to and systems are running

smoothly. The plants in question include three light fluid separators serving the bodywork and vehicle workshops and the special-purpose and service vehicle washing stations. These separators are used to treat waste water contaminated with oil and gasoline – also referred to as light fluids. Depending on the throughput of waste water, a disposal vehicle used to arrive once or twice a and refill the system with fresh water. The new emulsion separating plant used to treat the waste water directly at source saves Fraport both time and money.

The Simatic WinCC flexible operator control and monitoring system from the Siemens Industry Automation Division controls the plant, ensuring the efficient use of operating equipment by logging all data from the measuring devices and continuously adjusting the process to the

current level of water contamination. A 19 inch touchscreen panel allows the Fraport team to

keep a continuous eye on the process. Depending on their user rights, team members are able to

set parameters or switch the system to manual if servicing work is required. WinCC flexible

logs and archives not only alarms, operating messages and process data, but also compliance

with the German waste water treatment standard ATV H260. This simplifies the process of ATVcompliant reporting and the maintenance of a daily operating log. Additional logs indicate trends and the current power consumption of the pumps. Certified Siemens Solution Partner Aquasant, which worked together with Fraport to develop and implement the emulsion separating plant, uses a model to link directly into the plant from its office, to carry out remote analyses, give Solution Partner Aquasant, which worked together with Fraport to develop and implement the emulsion separating plant, uses a model to link directly into the plant from its office, to carry out remote analyses, give our experience with the devices used in other projects for the pre-purification of waste water”, says Project Leader and Aquasant CEO Roman John.

In the one and a half years since its installation, the system has already treated over four million liters of waste water – the equivalent of around 80 liters every minute. “Since eliminating the need for two-weekly maintenance and disposal of the gasoline separator waste products, we have made noticeable savings in terms of time and costs”, says Michael Starke, in charge of separation technology maintenance at Fraport. “The plant runs smoothly and achieves higher capacity, while

waste water values have been significantly improved.”