Ruhrverband – MWM

With over 60 sewage treatment plants between Brilon and Duisburg, the Ruhrverband purifies the wastewater of 2.2 million people and numerous industrial companies. This makes the Ruhrverband, founded in 1913, to one of the largest and most traditional water management companies in Germany.

The Ruhrverband, a public-law association, provides the water supply of 4.6 million people by operating the largest interconnected dam system in Germany. At the same time, it takes care of the wastewater treatment of 60 cities and communities in the 4,478 square kilometres catchment area of the Ruhr. Thanks to the efficient management and high technical standard of its plants, the Ruhr is today one of the cleanest industrial rivers in the world. Since the beginning of industrialisation, the hygienic quality has never been as high and the chemical load never as low as it is today.

Sewage treatment plants are among the largest energy consumers in the infrastructure, but they also generate electricity from the “renewable raw material” wastewater. Among other things, the Ruhrverband operates over 50 combined heat and power plants at its sewage treatment plants, in which electricity is generated from the sewage gas produced. The Ruhrverband already covers almost 60 percent of the electricity requirements of its sewage treatment plants with energy generated in-house.

The Ruhrverband relies on catalysts from Emission Partner for the exhaust gas aftertreatment of its sewage gas-fired combined heat and power plants, because in the course of sustainability the Ruhrverband can return the used catalysts to the company. The raw materials used in the catalysts are recycled and can then be reused. In this way the Ruhrverband actively reduces the consumption of raw materials. Three years ago, the four engines at the Hagen sewage treatment plant were retrofitted with catalyst chambers from Emission Partner. Since then, they have been able to maintain the lowered formaldehyde limit value.