What sustainable additives can I apply in the industrial wastewater treatment stages?
Industrial water treatment plants (also known by the acronym EDARI) treat water used in various industrial processes that require, due to their specific characteristics, special treatment procedures.
Due to its potential toxicity and contaminant load, industrial wastewater has potentially more significant impacts on water resources, human health and the environment than other wastewater. The first step is to keep the volumes and toxicity of water pollution at a minimum level at the point of origin. This includes the substitution of chemicals with more environmentally friendly raw materials and more efficient, naturally occurring and biodegradable products, as well as the education and training of responsible personnel to deal with pollution-related issues. The second step is to recycle as much water as possible in a plant, thus minimizing discharges. These actions are in line with the SDGs, in particular SDG 6 on “Water and Sanitation” set for 2023.
In this article we will detail the main stages that occur in the treatment of industrial wastewater: primary, secondary and tertiary phase. Our product proposal for the various phases are the sustainable additives
T-AQUA
We have especially developed a new line of sustainable products aimed at industrial wastewater treatment that are in line with the trends of the SDGs established by the UN.
PRIMARY TREATMENT
Objective: to eliminate suspended solids
It is a treatment that reduces the suspended solids present in the wastewater. The main physical-chemical processes that can be included in the primary treatment are the following: sedimentation, flotation, coagulation-flocculation and filtration. The waste generated is disposed of as primary sludge or mixed with secondary sludge (in both cases dewatered). The maintenance of this equipment is associated with corrosion effects on metallic elements and effects on concrete.
Proposal for sustainable additives T-AQUA
Natural coagulants TU-COAG: either by decantation or flotation treatments, it is usually necessary in this part to help the suspended particles to aggregate to form larger groupings and to decant by gravity or to float due to density differences. One form of aid is incorporated in water treatment as coagulants. These products are usually made of inorganic salts of different metals such as ferric chloride, aluminum sulfate or aluminum polychloride. In this part of the process, the products of the family TU-COAG (naturally occurring coagulants) replace traditional chemicals with organic polymers of natural origin that are able to improve coagulant efficiency compared to other inorganic materials in use today, resulting in a number of technical, economic and environmental advantages.
SECONDARY TREATMENT
Objective: to eliminate organic matter and nutrients
It is a series of important biological processes for the treatment of wastewater. wastewater which have in common the use of microorganisms (among which bacteria stand out) to carry out the elimination of biodegradable organic matter, both colloidal and dissolved, and the elimination of compounds containing nutrients (N and P).
Proposal for sustainable additives T-AQUA
TU-BIOP natural bioenhancers: In this part of the treatments, the biological processes through different microorganisms that facilitate the degradation of organic matter take absolute relevance. Biopotentiators contain naturally occurring, non-genetically modified strains that have the ability to produce good floc structures that will settle and produce a clean final effluent. This helps produce a biological sludge that has good settling and dewatering characteristics. In reseeding or shock recovery applications, the product’s strains work in harmony with the existing biomass and increase its overall efficiency, so that plant performance is restored as quickly as possible.
TU-FOAM water-based defoamers: in this part of the treatment (biological reactors), foaming is common. Foam is a dispersion of air and other gases in a liquid or solid. Except for a few cases, foams are generally undesirable. They hinder production processes in which liquids, especially water, play an important role as a means of transport and, in the worst case, can cause a total stoppage in the process. In addition, foams can lead to lower production and poorer quality finished products.
TERTIARY TREATMENT
Objective: to eliminate residual organic load and other pollutants
The purpose is to remove the residual organic load and other pollutants not removed in secondary treatment, such as nutrients, phosphorus, nitrogen and pathogens. These processes are of a biological or physical-chemical nature and are aimed at water reuse.
Proposal for sustainable additives T-AQUA
In this part of the treatments, the aim is to achieve specific quality parameters in order to be able to reuse water in some part of the installation that otherwise would have been discharged. As an example of processes involved in tertiary processes are membrane bioreactors followed by decantation or flotation processes, so that both our products of the line and our products of the tertiary line can be used as a basis for the development of a new process. TU-COAG (natural coagulants) as the TU-BIOP (natural bioenhancers) will once again take center stage to optimize biological and pollutant removal processes.
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