Artificial turf full washing with filtration of pollutants

The wet clean­ing head devel­oped and patent­ed by Sand­mas­ter floods the sur­face with high pres­sure, there­by flush­ing out fine par­ti­cles and con­t­a­m­i­nants and bind­ing them in the water. But what hap­pens to the waste­water? To rid it of pol­lu­tants, Sand­mas­ter has also devel­oped a spe­cial fil­ter sys­tem: a mul­ti-stage fil­tra­tion tech­nol­o­gy that almost com­plete­ly removes microplas­tics, met­als and PAHs and treats water so that it can be dis­charged into the sew­er sys­tem with­out hesitation.

To gain an overview of which sub­stances of con­cern to ath­letes and the envi­ron­ment can be found on the play­ing fields, the Group, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mikael Olsham­mar of the Swedish Envi­ron­men­tal Research Insti­tute IVL (www.ivl.se), exam­ined the wash water from the wet clean­ing process. The results show that some very harm­ful com­po­nents are deposit­ed in the dirty water, includ­ing microplas­tics, heavy met­als, PAHs and bac­te­ria. Thor­ough clean­ing and main­te­nance of arti­fi­cial turf fields is there­fore of enor­mous impor­tance. The dis­solved con­t­a­m­i­nants are direct­ly extract­ed with the dirty water and col­lect­ed in the tank.

To remove pol­lu­tants from the waste­water after­wards, the com­pa­ny has devel­oped a sus­tain­able solu­tion: the “Water­Beast”. A fil­ter sys­tem con­sist­ing of var­i­ous fil­ter lev­els through which the waste­water is passed and from which microplas­tics, PAHs and heavy met­als are sep­a­rat­ed. This means that the “detox­i­fied” water can be dis­charged into the sewage sys­tem with­out hes­i­ta­tion after the wash­ing process. The remain­ing residues are then dis­posed of in accor­dance with reg­u­la­tions. This process is unique but essen­tial for peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. Analy­ses show that 99.996% of microplas­tics are removed dur­ing fil­tra­tion. PAH lev­els drop dra­mat­i­cal­ly and fall below the lim­its for ground­wa­ter, and met­al lev­els are also great­ly reduced: both zinc and alu­minum can be reduced by 99% and 98% respec­tive­ly, lead by 94% and chromi­um by 80%. All oth­er met­als found in waste­water are also more than sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced by the fil­tra­tion process.

“The effec­tive­ness of the purifi­ca­tion sys­tem is very high. It can be an impor­tant and effi­cient mea­sure to lim­it the dis­charge of micro-wastes and chem­i­cals from arti­fi­cial turf sur­faces to a large extent. The fil­tra­tion tech­nol­o­gy treats the dirty water absorbed dur­ing full wash­ing, which can then be dis­charged into the sew­er with­out hes­i­ta­tion. This is fol­lowed by the brush­ing of the fibers and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the exist­ing gran­u­late on the arti­fi­cial turf pitch. After all, clean­ing and main­tain­ing arti­fi­cial turf has oth­er advan­tages besides its most impor­tant func­tion, which is to pro­tect peo­ple and the environment.”

- Mikael Olshammar

By restor­ing the drainage effect, the for­ma­tion of moss and algae is reduced. Play­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics, such as ball roll, also improve sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Since the wash­ing water binds dust and fines, the process is also suit­able for indoor use. Out­doors, clean­ing and main­te­nance are pos­si­ble in almost any weath­er and at tem­per­a­tures as low as +4° C. The process is also suit­able for the arti­fi­cial turf fibers. This process is also very gen­tle on the arti­fi­cial turf fibers and the ser­vice life of the arti­fi­cial turf is extend­ed by reg­u­lar main­te­nance, thus pro­tect­ing your investment.