Farmers don't work nine to five and neither do biogas plants, At LBT Agro in Denmark, their anaerobic digestion operation is more like 24/7, with the family^ run business now beginning to reap the rewards for their truly determined efforts to bring the best out of their plant, « than before, is testament to anyone who believes in first-class equipment and doesn't take no for an answer. Chuck everything in the tank, mix it up a bit, and get some gas? Not here. Back in 2002 the Hjorring Municipality decided to invest in AD and utilize the town’s wastewater for the production of biogas. At the time, Mr, and Mrs, Thomsen (Lars and Helle) were pig farmers, also producing crops of strawberries. "The concept was fine, with everyone in the local community supposedly set to benefit in the 14 | December2015 | Modern Pumping Today

longterm," says Lars. “But the Municipality's modus operandi was very much Monday to Friday They seemed to think that you could just switch everything off on a Friday afternoon and start it all up again on a Monday morning with everything instantly working properly but we knew that AD doesn't work like that.” As LBT Agro, the Thomsens inherited top-entry mixers for the digesters, but soon found that a thick crust would often form on the surface. Depending on the type of feedstock, the mixers would block regularly, creating a downtime nightmare of more than a week, with the whole tank having to...

"We didn't want to limit ourselves with only certain types of feedstock because that was all the misters could cope with," adds Lars, "and of course we wanted to significantly increase the amount of gas we were producing. We looked, as we still do today on constantly focusing on how we can improve, making a breakthrough in 2011 when we installed two Landis mixers into our secondary digester, which proved extremely reliable. This gave us more confidence,'' ROOM FOR EXPANSION In 2012, the Thomsens invested in chickens, adding their .manure to the feedstock and reducing their dependency and costs...