What do the largest cruise ship in the world, the “Harmony of the Seas” and FAN have in common?
Not much, you might think at first. But there actually is something: This ship, with roughly 9,000 people on board (passengers and crew), produces a great deal of waste, which means the need for a separator. The food remains must be very dry. The drier, the better.
The not insignificant quantities of food waste are collected in giant tanks and are burned in a large incinerator at a temperature of up to 900 °C so that absolutely nothing remains. The large amount of food waste consists of the waste from food preparation and the leftovers after meals.
All food remains from the entire ship are collected in the galley (ship’s kitchen) and sent to the second deck at the end of the ship via an internal vacuum system. Here the remains pass into a small hopper and from there into a shredder that processes the waste into small particles and mixes the liquid present in the waste into a nice “soup”.
Then the waste enters into a FAN separator, where it is separated into water and dry waste. The water flows into a large tank for further treatment. The dry substance enters into a large hopper and is later burned. The process runs 24/7 because dining options are available on the ship around the clock. However, the waste cannot be burned when the Harmony of the Seas is in port; this is only possible at sea. This means that the system needs tanks and storage capacity for at least 24 hours in port.
The Harmony of the Seas is a cruise ship of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and the largest cruise ship ever built. The company took possession of the ship on May 12, 2016. It is a slightly enlarged sister ship of the Oasis of the Seas and the Allure of the Seas. Its port of departure for cruises in the Caribbean is Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
