EFFLUENT WATER TREATMENThttp://www.thermoenergy.com/water-technologies/industrial-solutions/effluent-water-treatment.aspx
Advanced Industrial Wastewater Treatment Strategies
Industry today is coping with two water issues: quality and quantity. In many arid areas of the United States, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, water shortages due to drought and rising demand have put pressure on industry to conserve and use less process water. Industry has two water quality issues. Intake water often has to be purer than the water used for drinking and bathing. In addition, discharges of process water in industrial treatmentsystems to streams, rivers, estuaries, and lakes require rigorous effluent treatment to reduce contamination of these water bodies.
Traditional Industrial Wastewater Treatment
Historically, water and wastewater treatment plants have used a a variety of strategies to remove contamination from their influent and effluent waters so that it can be either used as process water or discharged to the sanitary sewer. Among the technologies that can be used for water and waste water treatment are ion exchange, reverse osmosis, filtration, flocculation, oil-water separators or biological treatments. Most industrial plants that require high quality water have separate water and wastewater treatment systems with the influent water used in the plant and then sent as used process water to wastewater treatment plants. The plant must then make a significant investment in separate water and wastewater treatment systems.
The Changing Economics of Process Water Use and Disposal
Today, the economics for industrial wastewater treatment and water treatment are changing because of water shortages, rising commodity prices and a higher degree of water and waste water treatment. Current average national prices are increasing more than the rate of inflation for water purchase and wastewater disposal. Nationwide average wastewater disposal rates have increased by 12.1% from 2002-2004. Historically, wastewater rates had risen 2-4% above the CPI from 1986 to 2002. However, among industrial and commercial groups there are widely different wastewater discharge rates based on surcharges for carbon oxygen demand, solids content, flow of their wastewater and degree of effluent treatment. Among the industry groups with the highest wastewater discharge rates are specialty food manufacturing, drum and barrel manufacturing, inorganic chemicals manufacturing, and paint manufacturing and others that use metals or solvents in their process. Water purchase prices are also increasing faster than the CPI.
Rising costs for water, wastewater disposal and rising commodity prices have many corporations rethinking their water and waste water treatment strategies looking to reduce costs. Instead of only considering environmental regulations in their decision making, companies are now looking at other factors in their waste water treatment capital investment models including:
- Economic value of the commodities discharged in wastewater
- Permit costs
- Purchase costs for process water
- Disposal Costs for wastewater
- Waste Disposal costs
- Costs of wastewater treatment systems
By considering all of these factors, one question arises-why can't we recover our process chemistry and our water from our effluent treatment and reuse these valuable resources in our plant to reduce our costs?
Advanced Industrial Wastewater Treatment
Recovery and reuse of process water in industrial treatment systems requires a new technological strategy based on the separation of process water from the process chemistry. These advanced industrial wastewater treatment system combine traditional off-the-shelf technologies such as membranes, reverse osmosis, micro- and ultrafiltration with newer systems that allow recovery of water and process chemistries at a standard of quality that can be reused or recycled back into your process.
ThermoEnergy's Resource and Recovery Technology
ThermoEnergy's product line is based on its proprietary Controlled Atmosphere Separation Technology (CAST). This highly adaptable technology is combined with other traditional off-the shelf technologies such as ion exchange, carbon absorption etc. to provide a unique, efficient and cost effective treatment system that can recover at sufficient purity water, contaminates and feed stocks so that they can be reused or recycled.
The CAST technology adjusts temperature and pressure in a continuous flow system so that water or chemicals can be extracted based on their chemical and physical properties. This technology has two configurations, the CAST system that extracts water from the waste materials such as in a metal finishing plant and the RCAST system that extracts volatile compounds from water such as solvents from industrial wastewater. By using a vacuum, sensible heat, segregation of waste streams and the chemical properties of compounds used, the CAST technology can be designed for a specific process and can separate a wide variety of materials from metals to volatile organic compounds.
The diagram below illustrates the CAST technology:
How to Become the Lowest Cost Manufacturer through your wastewater treatment system:
As an example of what resource and recovery system can do for your plant, a CASTion client installed seven years ago several CAST systems for their chrome and nickel plating operation as a part of its zero liquid discharge process. The CAST wastewater treatment plants have reduced chrome purchases by 93% and nickel purchases by 65%. Process water demand has been reduced by 95% and the plant does not discharge any water to the sanitary sewer. In the last three years nickel and chrome prices have increased by 75%.
Today, this client because it recovers its process chemistry has a competitive advantage over its competition allowing them to be the lowest cost manufacturer in their industry.
Contact Us to learn more about our innovative effluent water treatment.
