Wastewater Treatment
by Integrated Engineers Inc.
First --- What Is Wastewater?
This is an obvious question that needs no answer for anyone visiting this site looking to improve their wastewater treatment plant or processes. And the name itself is pretty clear in defining what wastewater is, water that has become waste or is used. But defining the term can be useful for clarification in our thinking and approaches to wastewater treatment problem solving.
Wastewater in the simplest of terms is used water. This can be water contained in the waste products of industry, domestic water use from residential, commercial and industrial uses and storm runoff.
Of special note is that storm runoff here is meant as runoff in urban areas with lots of asphalt and other hard surfaces, littered with oils, metals and other trash and contaminants. This seemingly benign water is actually a public and environmental health hazard.
All of this wastewater contains various types and quantities of contaminants, unhealthy contaminants for the most part, and should be treated to allow safe disposal or reuse. Wastewater treatment removes these contaminants from the used water.
Economic reality sometimes prevents the proper treatment of wastewater, creating the conditions for pollution of lakes, streams, soils and groundwater. Part of what we do is make wastewater treatment available in a cost effective way.
Why Treat Wastewater?
The primary purpose of wastewater treatment is public safety and environmental health.
In many countries there are stringent rules regarding discharge of effluents and wastewater, rules designed to protect the public safety and environment.
Preventing pollution is a powerful incentive for wastewater treatment, as the benefits are not only cultural and social but help sustain a human friendly environment for the long-term.
Recycling water is another great benefit of treating wastewater. This means saving money in the industrial and residential arenas alike. Clean water is becoming more and more costly to locate and deliver, so any water reuse can amount to huge savings.
Making the environmental compliance issues profitable can be effected through proper and efficient wastewater treatment. That is our goal in assisting you.
Wastewater Treatment Defined
Another really obvious point on its face, but again, worthy of clarification.
Wastewater Treatment is the safe removal of contaminants from the waste water or waste stream and their disposal. The key here is safety.
Treating wastewater alone is not enough. You must also safely dispose of the resulting solid wastes and, hopefully, reuse the water or safely discharge the wastewater. This seems simple, however, the solids may contain high levels of unsafe contaminants that cannot simply be land filled. Our process encapsulates these contaminants rendering them harmless, or recoverable.
The level to which you remove the contaminants, or treat the wastewater, will vary depending on discharge requirements, what the contaminants are, and whether you are planning to recycle the wastewater, which you should. Our main goal is to help you treat your industrial wastewater to a level affording waste water reuse and safe disposal of the solids. This is an achievable objective for you.
Of note is the common distinction between industrial wastewater treatment and wastewater treatment. Wastewater treatment as a term is usually associated with sewage treatment whereas the waste water resulting from our myriad industries world wide, with special wastewater treatment considerations and needs, is usually described by the term Industrial Wastewater Treatment. This article is a general treatise on wastewater treatment as a whole and how Integrated Engineers' approach can benefit your bottom line while meeting compliance requirements and keeping our environment safe.
Most raw sewage, and other wastewater, is over 99 percent water with the remaining constituents being dissolved and suspended solids of various types, including metals, depending on the source.
Read more about the basic processes of Wastewater Treatment >>>
So remember, Wastewater Treatment as a whole is purifying used water for safe and healthy reuse or discharge and safely disposing of the contaminants or solids.
Sometimes you can even reclaim the contaminants for even greater profits such as in gold recovery for the jewelry industry.
Wastewater Treatment Processes
The treating of wastewater can be achieved in numerous ways depending on the type of wastewater. Wastewater treatment is typically broken down into two approaches, biological and chemical.
Biological
There will always be some overlap in wastewater treatment approaches but largely sewage treatment and other wastewater treatment with high levels of organic compounds, such as in the wine industry, uses a biological process.
Many industrial wastewater treatment processes will use mechanical and chemical approaches as necessary sometimes with biological processes as well.
The various stages of sewage treatment such as primary (debris removal), secondary (liquid solids separation) and tertiary treatment (polishing) treat the wastewater to different levels of purity. For more on sewage treatment read OSU's article.
There are many all in one wastewater treatment packages that can biologically treat wastewater in smaller areas such as packaged plants and sequential batch reactors. Batch reactors are a particularly useful wastewater treatment process for the wine industry.
Chemical
Chemical wastewater treatment is the process of adding chemicals to the wastewater to remove or neutralize chemical constituents, bind with dissolved solids to precipitate out of solution and/or adjusting the pH of wastewater prior to additional treatment. Flocculants and coagulants are common classes wastewater treatment chemicals.
Industrial wastewater (as distinguished from sewage) more commonly requires chemical pre-treatment of the waste water stream and flocculants or coagulants to effectively remove the solids. This is due to the nature of industry and all the varied by-products in the wastewater stream. Our specialty is Industrial Wastewater Treatment using our Floccin™ line of products though you will find biological wastewater treatment assistance as well.
Conclusion
As you can see, wastewater treatment is an essentially simple process (cleaning water) with a more complex and varied set of applications.
Integrated Engineers Inc. has developed and refined our approach to virtually any wastewater treatment need using our proprietary flocculant line dubbed Floccin™.
Using these flocculating agents can eliminate some of the more common steps in wastewater treatment. This can result in substantial savings in both cost of operation and in a higher quality result or effluent reducing compliance costs and increasing waster recycling.
You will also find numerous biological wastewater treatment solutions as well.
Just let us know your needs, let us evaluate your current system, and most likely you will find ways to improve your wastewater treatment process, meet a higher environmental standard, while saving you money, thus increasing profits.
Hopefully this article has helped clarify (pun intended) some of the challenges and needs involved with Wastewater Treatment.
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