Topics such as innovation, development and environmental sustainability have placed EniPower in prime position in providing technologically advanced solutions. Società EniPower Ferrara, S.p.A. (SEF) for the completion of the Ferrara Combined Cycle Power plant entrusted BONO ARTES to supply a battery of "Self-backwashing Gravity filters” for filtering the make-up and re-circulation water of the cooling towers.
The cooling water filtration plant provided is a system of "Self-backwashing" sand industrial filters based on the principle of gravity operation.
The “driving force” is represented by the hydrostatic water level in a distribution tower. Each filter is arranged on three chambers. Water flows from the distribution tower into the intermediate chamber across the filtering bed and down into the lower chamber. By means of vertical pipes the bottom chamber is connected with the upper one so that filtered water is upcoming through the pipes and stored in the upper chamber. From the top chamber filtered water overflows directly into the cooling water basin.
The filtering unit, designed to deal with a nominal capacity of 3000 m3 / h, consists of two trains, the first one dedicated to the make-up water, worth 1000 m3 / h capacity and four filters, the second one filtering the cooling water side stream designed on 2000 m3/h capacity and arranged on eight filters. The development of this innovative technology that combines the ability to filter with the operation of self-cleaning, is able to ensure a reduction of suspended solids exceeding 90% and enables to treat large quantities of water with minimum energy consumption.