In 2015, in collaboration with Sapir Engineering S.r.l., a pilot plant was designed and built for the treatment of wastewater produced by the leaching of clay heaps, using filtration technology with the storage of the residual material in geotextile bags.

The results obtained demonstrated the validity of the entire production cycle, which is also applicable to full-scale works, allowing the discharge of treated water into surface waters while retaining solid particles.

The equipment was designed in collaboration with Sapir Engineering S.r.l. to be easily transportable and have maximum operational flexibility, both in automatic mode and fully automatic mode, with the option for remote control. The process, which promotes sediment flocculation, uses natural polyelectrolytes that are environmentally friendly.

The pilot plant, based on a containerized system, was used for the creation of a large-scale plant for treating wastewater produced by the rainwater leaching of clay heaps located in the Ravenna (RA) port area, owned by SAPIR S.p.A.

The main characteristic of this wastewater is a suspended solids content not exceeding 80 mg/l, as required by current regulations for discharge into receiving bodies, with an incoming concentration of 15 g/l.

The plant includes the construction of a homogenization tank equipped with level probes and a volumetric pump that transfers the sludge to the filtration system in geotubes, which is pre-conditioned using polyelectrolytes. Before discharge, the drained water is filtered through a system of quartz filters.