Quality and care

Egon Schneider sees many familiar objects when he walks through the hazardous waste management facility in Munich run by GSB Sonderabfallentsorgung Bayern. He has been with the company as an operations manager for 36 years – almost the same length of time as some of the plant’s meters that monitor processes and the resulting treated wastewater. “When the plant was built in the early 1990s, all the flow metering equipment was entrusted to Endress+Hauser,” says Schneider. “And a number of the Variomag and Pulsemag devices installed back then are still in service. They’re pretty much indestructible.”

That the instruments still work after such a long time is not a given, since hazardous waste disposal involves the chemical and physical treatment of organic and inorganic effluents such as oil-water mixtures, acids and alkaline solutions. “For this we use strong chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, hydrochloric acid, sodium hypochlorite and limewater,” says Lara Peschke, team leader at the plant. Flow measurements regulate the dosage of these corrosive and abrasive liquids. Another challenge is that some of the chemicals inevitably leave deposits. “That’s why we need high-quality equipment that delivers precise measurements even under fluctuating process conditions,” she adds.