TAIN, Scotland – Scottish firm Glenmorangie may be best known for producing delicious bottles of single malt whisky yet the company is now on its way to producing its own energy from waste.
The company took delivery of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor system at its distillery in Scotland’s Northern Highlands, which produces between four to five million litres of whisky per annum.
An average of ten to twelve litres of water are needed to produce one litre of whisky.
Working with UK company Aquabio, the anaerobic digestion plant at the Ross-shire distillery uses natural biological processes which both reduces output in distillery wastewater by up to 95 percent and creates energy in the form of methane rich biogas.
Using ultra-filtration tubular membranetechnology, the plant now largely operates automatically and can be remotely monitored online.
The microorganisms in Glenmorangie’s bioreactor are able to degrade 11.7 tonnes of chemical oxygen demand in the polluted wastewater everyday, in the process producing 3500 cubic metres of biogas daily.
Importantly, the biogas replaces some of the fossil fuels used at the distillery to heat the stills in which the spirit is made.
Steve Goodwin, managing director of Aquabio, said: “The low energy Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Plant – or AnMBR LE – is designed to improve the quality of the effluent being discharged into the Dornoch Firth and the resulting biogas is reused as fuel in the site boiler system.”
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