Brown grease is a costly problem our platform can manage ---
sustainably and profitably.
In the US, almost half of all sewer blockages are caused by FOG, or brown grease. Blockages can cause sanitary sewer overflows, which discharge sewage into the environment without treatment. Such fatty-oriented blockages cause collection systems and wastewater treatment systems to perform well below capacity, demanding a costly and perpetual response. All in all, these blockages result in mandatory repairs that exceed $25 billion annually in the US, and exponentially more worldwide. Furthermore, FOG carries high environmental and economic costs arising from its treatment and disposal. Rethinking the way FOG is treated at wastewater treatment plants brings enormous benefits to plant operators.
TOTAL FOG SOLUTIONS®
Our FOG Management system diverts and captures FOG (brown grease) in the collection system, upstream from chronically troubled areas, driving down O&M costs attributed to FOG. Our FOG-To-Biodiesel system optimizes resource recovery without interference to the operations of a plant, in an automated and continuous-flow process that simultaneously eliminates the environmental and economic costs associated with FOG disposal and creates a new revenue stream in the form of fuel sales.
Total FOG Solutions® Platform Highlights:
- Installation and operation of system is non-invasive to plant operations
- Mitigation of O&M costs attributed to brown grease, e.g., pipe blockages and consequential sanitary sewer overflows
- Pathway to monetize waste FOG
- Elimination of landfilling and incineration of FOG – and associated environmental and economic costs
- Works cooperatively with digesters to improve volatile solids removal and increase biogas production
- A profitable solution that also helps meet organizational ESG goals
- Modular system sizes to meet customer use cases
- Flexible purchase options including Total FOG Solutions® as a Service with no up-front purchase required
FOG Management
Handling brown grease is one of the messiest and disliked jobs for WWTP personnel. It commonly also causes large-scale problems such as pipe blockages that lead to sanitary sewer overflows. In addition, it is costly to manage, treat and dispose of, and has a negative impact on the environment due to standard disposal procedures such as landfilling and incineration.
We like to say our FOG Management system makes brown grease related challenges disappear. It diverts and captures brown grease in the collection system, upstream from chronically troubled areas, driving down O&M costs attributed to it. FOG not captured in the collection system is treated as usual, then skimmed off clarifiers as scum grease.
But rather than have scum grease hauled away to incinerate or landfill, or to have it mixed with sludge to feed to a digester, we can convert it onsite, without interference to the operations of a plant, in an automated and continuous-flow process, into B100 biodiesel.
We can work with facilities that have or do not have existing FOG receiving stations. Either way, we believe we can make your brown grease related challenges disappear by offering our FOG Management system as an installed asset — or as a service with no up-front purchase required.
Waste-To-Energy
Our FOG-To-Biodiesel system helps municipalities and industrial operators address environmental-stewardship and decarbonization mandates that have become central to public policy and create a new revenue stream from what is currently a cost. By converting waste FOG to biodiesel, WWTP operators can sell production or utilize it to generate power. Municipalities can also utilize it to fuel their fleets and reduce respective carbon emissions by up to 74%. Life cycle analysis by Argonne National Laboratory concluded that emissions for B100 biodiesel are 74% lower than those from petro-diesel. The California Air Resources Board has generated similar results for its life cycle analysis of biodiesel.
FOG is commonly mixed with sludge and utilized as a co-substrate in anaerobic digesters for solids volume reduction and biomethane production. Replacing FOG with glycerin, a byproduct of our FOG-To-Biodiesel system, can increase volatile solids removal and biogas production. With our FOG-To-Biodiesel system, more energy (and value) can then be produced with the FOG that would have otherwise been fed to the digester.
Awareness & Education
As engineers, we would be remiss if we didn’t identify the source of FOG-related problems – and consequently, design a solution to address it. To that end, we’ve developed educational programming that we offer free-of-charge to municipalities, so they can effectively launch campaigns to raise both awareness and compliance among the residents and food-service establishments they serve.
