Heron Innovators Revolutionizes Liquid/Solid Separation for Wastewater Treatment in the Food, Dairy and Animal Products Industries

Suspended Air® Flotation produces a cleaner effluent and dryer skimmed solids while reducing operating costs and maintenance

Roseville, CA – Heron Innovators, a pioneer in water treatment technologies, is driving the industry forward with its advanced Suspended Air® Flotation (SAF®) system, setting new standards for efficiency and effectiveness in solid/liquid separation in the food, dairy and animal products industries. SAF® has consistently demonstrated superior performance compared to conventional flotation separation techniques in removing suspended solids from screened raw wastewater and thickening of the recovered solids.

Not only does Suspended Air® Flotation enhance separation efficiency, resulting in cleaner effluent and drier skimmed solids, it also significantly reduces operating costs through lower energy consumption, decreased flocculant and coagulant usage, and reduced operator attention and maintenance requirements. Moreover, SAF® systems occupy a smaller footprint while increasing hydraulic flow and solids loading capacities.

Heron Innovators has been building and installing Suspended Air® Flotation systems across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada for twenty-five years, for a wide range of industrial and municipal water and wastewater treatment applications. These SAF® systems have consistently outperformed traditional flotation methods, including Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF), Cavitation Air Flotation (CAF), Induced Air Flotation (IAF), Induced Gas Flotation (IGF), and traditional microbubble technologies. SAF® systems consistently achieve reductions of TSS by greater than 98% and of BOD by 30% to 80%. 

SAF® achieves this superior performance by utilizing charged microbubbles, known as aphrons, that do not dissolve. An aphron is a double-walled bubble, 7-25 µm in size, that will not coalesce and has a significantly greater surface area and longer lifespan than traditional DAF bubbles. Aphrons can possess either a cationic or anionic charge. This electrostatic affinity and the resulting surface tension advantage allow aphrons to effectively adhere to, attract, and encapsulate contaminant particles.

Heron Innovators offers custom designed systems that are plumbed, wired, and tested with flotation and ancillary equipment all on a single skid. This plug-and-play design minimizes installation time and costs normally associated with field integration of pumps, pH control, chemical feed, and other associated equipment. 

The SAF® system installations are custom fabricated from type 304 stainless steel. Standard system features include a Suspended Air® Generator, ClearMixer®, ClearFloater® (flotation cell), serpentine-style floc mixer, influent flow meter and process control panel. If needed, coagulant metering pump, polymer dilution system, chemical staging, pH sensor/controller and acid/base metering pumps can be supplied as options.

SAF® systems are available in sizes ranging from 50 gallons per minute (gpm) to greater than 8,000 gpm. Smaller flows can be treated by batch processing. Skid-mounted systems are available with capacities from 50 gpm to 2,800 gpm. 

For more information about Heron Innovators and the SAF® system, visit www.heroninnovators.com. 

About Heron Innovators

Heron Innovators has been a leading provider of water treatment solutions since 1998. The innovation behind Suspended Air® Flotation (SAF®) was invented by the late Dr. Felix Sebba in 1975. Since then, the engineering and science team at Heron Innovators has advanced this technology, establishing flotation without dissolved air as the next level in liquid/solid separation for water and wastewater treatment, as well as solids thickening