Slurry separation

Boysground said:

Houle piston pump. Hydraulic drive off a half horse power motor. Lifts about 6m with our setup, it cycles every 20 seconds each pump is about 40 gallons.

Had a supposedly sand proof impeller pump and destroyed it in a few weeks. Other than bushes and seals wearing we have done little else to the houle pump since it was bought.

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sjt01 said:

Had a 2 cylinder Houle on the digester feed. Really robust, it has now done over 39,500 hours since May 2011. Needs a set of main seals a year, and we used to re-bush and new 1" shafts in the flapper valves once a year. We have now fitted auto greasing, and the shafts and bushes last at least twice as long.
It has pumped gate hinges, 4" diameter flints, lengths of chain and lots of tramp metal.
We changed from the initial change over valve which was not too successful on the two cylinder system to electrical change over, and have recently moved from that to a hydraulic shuttle valve that switches on rise in pressure. Doing that we found that we only needed a single cylinder in that application, so took the other one off and are using it on acid treated digestate that caused failure in 2 sizes of progressive cavity pump, a submersible chopper pump, a small diaphragm pump, a home made diaphragm pump, and an external mounted chopper slurry pump.
Top tip - used vacuum pump oil lasts longest on top of the pump cylinder.

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Boysground said:

I don’t stir. Can run a hydraulic driven mixer off the houle I think.


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Boysground said:

Scrapers push into a gutter, shuttle scraper system moves muck to the reception pit. This is no more than a corner of the lagoon sectioned off with panels. There is also a grid for the tractor scraping.

We were diverting wash water in but the plastic pipe system is damaged at the mo and most of the year it doesn’t make much difference. Laser level sensor triggers the pump and separator. Sand will build up in the reception pit, we have a houle super pump lagoon mixer which we can jet the pit out with. When the system breaks the reception pit can overflow into the main part of the lagoon.

Our separator isn’t really man enough for what we are doing, so it’s quite worn now and will get replaced in the next few years.

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Boysground said:

It’s a CE Projects machine. It’s not a bad machine we must have had it 7 or 8 years now and it takes a massive amount of abuse from the amount of sand we use. We would change a screen every 8 months or so, That’s a whole day to change as it has to be fully stripped down. Which can be a bit awkward. There are times when it seems to block easily then it will go weeks without a problem. I think the overflow area under the screen should have a bit more space. We try and run a bit more liquid into the reception pit in the summer to help it when the yards dry.

If you are sand free or dusting sand on mattresses it’s would be perfect.

I’m not sure what to replace it with. Something more heavy duty that’s simpler to change a screen. I think we would probably have to look at Canadian or American setups. But having spent quite a bit of cash in the last year it’s further down the replacement list.

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sjt01 said:

We started off with a Carrier type from Linton in NI, similar idea to the CE Projects and also an absolute pain to change screens, needing about 6 skyhooks. The screens bunged up quite quickly with limescale in our hard water area. We have now changed to a Sepcom screw type, and after modifying the platform for better access can change a screen single handed in 30 minutes. https://www.greencrop.co.uk/products/slurry/slurry-separators/
It took us a bit of experimenting to find the best screw and screen for our material, but now it is reliable on a 0.9 mm main screen and 0.9mm extension. Wear was much more with a 0.75 mm main screen

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Boysground said:

I’ve always been told screw types and sand are not a good combination.

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Boysground said:

I have been separating for a few years now. It has a number of pros and cons. I have deep sand beds and so the sand is a massive issue. The layout of the farm does not make movement of anything easy, it is bisected by a main A road and a river. My tanker runs every week moving or spreading slurry.
The sand is the biggest issue it destroys anything mechanical it touches, the wear on the separator is high but the sand stays with the liquid portion settles quickly which means we can more it to another lagoon and more importantly my umbilical contractor will put it through his pump. We put separated liquid on wheat this reduces my fertiliser spend on the wheat.

I also have more muck than I need, I have 4 or 5 people who regularly have separated solids. The 2 main ones will have had over 1000t each in the last year. If I call either a fleet of trailers appear, they are both arable farmers so they don’t need anything more special than a hired muck spreader to spread it.

It reduces my nvz storage requirement and with planning issues it’s difficult to enlarge the lagoon at the dairy.

The separator is getting worn now and will be replaced in the next few years. The cost of running isn’t huge as the whole auto scraper and separator system runs on 4 small electric motors.

It has taken a lot of learning and alteration to get to the system we have now. Never believe any company that says their kit is sand proof. I won’t be going back to not separating the pros massively outweigh the cons on this farm.

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Boysground said:

The original “sand proof” pump destroyed itself very quickly and I now have a houle/gea piston pump. If you need to lift sand in slurry I wouldn’t use anything else. It just keeps going except for an occasional seal.

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Boysground said:

Here you go

DTX Manure Separator

The DTX manure separator allows for fine separation without the screen cleaning. Also allows for high throughput without the need to manage feed rates even with high dissolved manure solids content.

www.daritech.com

GEA XPress™

The GEA XPress™ is a modular fiber separation system with a step down concept which allows increased pressure at each step for optimal moisture removal.

www.gea.com

CE PROJECTS LTD

CE Projects are experts in slurry, sludge and effluent projects in both agriculture and industrial environments. We supply and install all of the equipment and ancillaries needed for the processing and treatment of slurry and sludge. We offer our services across the whole of the UK.

ceprojectsltd.co.uk

Top 2 are almost certainly a tad more expensive!!

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Boysground said:

Here you go

DTX Manure Separator

The DTX manure separator allows for fine separation without the screen cleaning. Also allows for high throughput without the need to manage feed rates even with high dissolved manure solids content.

www.daritech.com

GEA XPress™

The GEA XPress™ is a modular fiber separation system with a step down concept which allows increased pressure at each step for optimal moisture removal.

www.gea.com

CE PROJECTS LTD

CE Projects are experts in slurry, sludge and effluent projects in both agriculture and industrial environments. We supply and install all of the equipment and ancillaries needed for the processing and treatment of slurry and sludge. We offer our services across the whole of the UK.

ceprojectsltd.co.uk

Top 2 are almost certainly a tad more expensive!!

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TheRanger said:

Must be a lot of separators getting turned off with the cost of electricity?

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