AMCON was founded as Environmental Facility Center in 1974.
At that time, our main business was the “maintenance of septic tanks at apartment complexes and sewage treatment plants .”
How did a maintenance company turn into a manufacturer capable of developing its unique sludge dewatering press, VOLUTE™?
As you can see from our motto – “AMCON does it as nobody else will” – we are full of passion when it comes to pioneering the development of innovative dewatering presses. We believe the development of our VOLUTE™ was possible due to our out-of-the-box thinking coupled with a long history of hard work.
How wastewater was treated
in apartment complexes in the 1970s
In the 1970s, wastewater from apartment complexes were treated in “centralized septic tanks” placed on the premises. The water was returned to nature, and the remaining liquid sludge was transported to a central wastewater treatment plant. For more efficient treatment, it was necessary to concentrate the sludge to reduce its volume. However, sludge thickeners and sludge dewatering presses in those days were exorbitant in price and difficult to install, and the cost of transportation incurred a major burden on the tenants and the management company.
First step – starting as a manufacturer
Masaaki Sasaki, the founder of AMCON, couldn’t stand the situation and decided to “make a new product ourselves if it doesn’t exist in the world.”
After extensive research with our development team, in 1982, we finally launched a “sludge thickener using filter cloth” as our first mechanical product. Its small footprint and affordable price satisfied many customers living in apartment complexes.
However, challenges still remained for our first self-developed unit. Separating solids and liquid with a filter cloth was prone to clogging, requiring large amounts of washing water, frequent replacement of filter cloths, intensive labor, and other additional costs. As we were a maintenance company, we were painfully aware of the inconveniences operators went through on site, as such, we felt a duty as a “manufacturer” to resolve the remaining challenges of “labor intensiveness and high operating costs.”
Second step – the birth
of the comb-blade VOLUTE™
We relaunched the R&D process with the “screw press” being the main principle of the upcoming new design, as it does not use a filter cloth and consumes far less energy. The idea was to create a mechanism which will scrape out clogging materials autonomously, which led to the development of the “comb-blade” method. We developed a sludge thickener that combined a screw with layered nail-like parts and a filter element that intermeshed with each other, ultimately evolving into the sludge dewatering press that we are familiar with today through further innovations. The new products were named VOLUTE™, meaning “spiral” or “helical,” and were officially launched in April 1991 as the “VOLUTE™ Thickener” and “VOLUTE™ Sludge Dewatering Press.” This was our very first patent (obtained in 1990).
Overcoming the third challenge
While the number of orders for the comb-blade VOLUTE™ was steadily increasing, yet another obstacle stood in our way. When the machine was in full operation, a series of failures occurred in which the comb-blade broke after only a few hundred hours of operation. Repeated verification tests attributed the problem to the layered structure itself. Excessive load was concentrated on the comb blade itself, which was scraping out the sludge from the filter mesh. We thought long and hard about alternative methods in scraping out clogging materials without using the comb. The founder and the development team were facing challenging times, without a clear solution to the issues they were encountering.
Birth of improved VOLUTE™, eliminating
the need for large amounts of cleaning water
One day, upon riding the train, the founder happened to notice “a series of swaying hand straps”, which led him to envisage a breakthrough idea. He thought that “If we can create a cylindrical filter element layered with moving rings and a screw fitted inside, it could potentially be effective in preventing clogging.” This idea was immediately brought to life as a prototype, resulting in a completely new product called the “multi-disc screw press.” With a clog-free structure that has a self-cleaning mechanism of “moving rings”, we realized the world’s first sludge thickener/dewatering press “requiring no cleaning water” (*A very small amount of water is used with the shower to wash off leaked sludge.)
We obtained the second patent in 1992 with this equipment, and it is the origin of the VOLUTE™ Sludge Dewatering Press, which is still one of our core products today.
Our never-ending journey
Starting as a manufacturer with the goal of “creating a sludge thickener/dewatering machine that eases wastewater treatment processes,” we have continued our research and development persistently.
-In 1996, we introduced “Dell Compo,” a sludge dewatering and fermentation system for small WWTPs, realizing “recycling of sludge”;
-In 2004, the “dewatering machine for dry film resist waste” was developed, realizing the dewatering of peeling waste, which is difficult to handle due to its strong alkaline nature;
-In 2016, the “AP series”, a fully automatic polymer make-up unit was developed, realizing an autonomous dissolution process of powdered flocculants;
-In 2018, the “VOLUTE™ DW Series sludge dewatering press” was introduced, enabling stable operation by automating the mechanical response to concentration variations;
-And finally, in 2021, we unveiled the “VOLUTE DUO™ sludge dewatering press,” which can achieve stable dewatering of high fiber / inorganic sludge types.
However, our journey is not over. We will continue to deliver new technologies that provide “amenity and convenience beyond expectation.”
