Last Friday EPSE enjoyed coffee and cake whilst EPSE’s Kimmo Hellsten presented SCOPE, a continuous laboratory scale testing unit of his own development and constructing. SCOPE is short for Scalable, Continuous, Piloting Equipment and it is designed for developing the EPSE™ Method and to ease the transition from laboratory scale to pilot scale. Hellsten has designed and built the equipment from scratch.
The EPSE process is pH controlled, and also with this equipment the pH controlling is automatized. The equipment enables treatment of samples as a continuous process at the capacity of 0,5 liters or more. The small sample size is based on the need of transportation for the samples, since often EPSE’s sites are far away and the sample delivery can be difficult and expensive.
At EPSE, Hellsten works among technical development projects together with Ilpo Viskari and the now unveiled equipment is the first in a series of three product versions in this development project. This means that two more advanced versions of Scope are on the way.
The EPSE process typically proceeds from laboratory scale to piloting, and the continuous laboratory test equipment is a step in between these. The Scope test unit has the same operation principle as EPSE’s piloting equipment whilst the scale is laboratory-sized enabling cost efficiency and easier execution. The tests provide reliable data for the execution of pilots and about the behavior of the EPSE™ Method in a continuous process with the particular wastewater that is used.
The text is written by Anni Honkonen.