Industrial wastewater recycling: a variety of scented mixtures are produced and configured to produce washing and cleaning agents, such as shower gels or even glue sticks. This creates huge quantities of rinsing effluent in various compositions and concentrations every day. Although it is particularly challenging to treat this in a regenerative manner and free it of the various contaminants, we achieve this to the full satisfaction of our customers.
The client
One of the world’s leaders for washing and cleaning agents based in Germany contracted us to implement a wastewater recycling plant to save wastewater costs. This project not only involved state-of-the-art supporting analysis technology, but also required a good eye for situational results.
The starting point
The wastewater recycling systems are able to work 24/7. The product is produced using more than one thousand natural and synthetic substances in automated mixing systems. Around 15 cubic metres of water need to be cleaned every day. Various surfactants with lipophilic properties and special water-insoluble substances are used. The production wastewater needs to be treated in a system using membrane filtration equipment. The client also wanted the existing equipment to be comprehensively replaced to save wastewater disposal costs.
The challenges
The membrane filtration system has to be able to filter substances with lipophilic properties through to water-insoluble components continuously every day. At the same time, all contingencies need to be covered so that, in a worst case scenario, work could continue using a second reserve filtration channel. A further challenge was that the system needed to be mobile for use at various locations. Eliminating various substances also places special demands on material and technology due to the high potential for chemical aggression.
The solution
We opted for a tried-and trusted three level method for this highly complex project. After extensive in-house testing, we conducted an in-depth practical test using one of our leased on-site filtration systems. We then applied all insights and special requirements gained from the testing phase in the subsequent system implementation phase.
Rental plant for wastewater recycling
After the detailed laboratory and engineering work, ROBOTCHEMIE also balanced out operating-specific fluctuations and special factors by means of a validation test. In special cases, we can lease to customers real-world and test-optimised membrane filter systems for testing over a period of 24 months. These have already been configured, and the insights from the in-house testing phase have been incorporated, so that specific requirements and customer needs are taken into account. In this case, we simulated other malfunctions in a test phase to optimise the system to cover all contingencies. The resulting customisation wishes were incorporated into the end design phase.
We built an automatic customised ultra filtration system of the basic type FILTO VA 2000 as a wastewater treatment system. Its system components are designed to guarantee adequate process stability over a very long utilization period of at least ten years.
The Result
Depending on requirements, the total filtration output is doubled to 30 cubic meters a day. Here, we reached an elimination rate of at least 99.65 percent with a recycling rate of more than 90 percent. Thanks to the new mobile systems monitoring service, the responsible employees can control the entire system remotely using tablets.
