Internship Report

EFFLUENT TREATMENT
PLANT (ETP)
Gul Ahmed Textile Mills
Introduction:
As textile industry is one of the largest industries in the world and different fibers such as
cotton, silk, wool as well as synthetic fibers are all pre‐treated, processed, colored and using
large amounts of water and a variety of chemicals.
Major pollutants in textile wastewaters are high suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand,
heat, color, acidity, and many other soluble substances.
The effluents could have lower dissolved oxygen concentrations which means higher BOD and
COD. Solids in textile wastewater come from fibrous substrate and process chemicals, this
disturbs the aquatic life by showing oxygen transfer and reducing light penetration.
Every country is aiming at Common Effluent Treatment Plants for the development of zero
discharge solution for the bleaching and dyeing units. The total effluent treatment capacity is
designed based on the Industry size and on the effluents generated in these Industries.

EFFLUENT TREATMENT PLANT (ETP):

Effluent Treatment Plant or ETP is one type of waste water treatment method which is
particularly designed to purify industrial waste water for its reuse and its aim is to release safe
water in environment.
Industrial effluents contain various materials, depending on the industry. Some effluents
contain oils and grease, and some contain toxic materials (e.g., cyanide). Since industrial waste
water contains a diversity of impurities, therefore specific treatment technology called ETP is
required.
The ETP Plant works at various levels and involves various physical, chemical, biological and
membrane processes to treat waste water from different industrial sectors like chemicals,
drugs, pharmaceutical, refineries, dairy, ready mix plants & textile etc.

Benefits of ETP: 
 To clean industry effluent and recycle it for further use.
 To reduce the usage of fresh water in industries.
 To preserve natural environment against pollution.
 To meet the standards for emission of pollutants set by the Government & avoid heavy
penalty.
 To reduce expenditure on water acquisition.
The mechanisms which often used together in ETP are:

 Physical
 Chemical
 Biological
Generally, effluent treatment plant consists of four levels of treatment which undergoes in
sequence are briefly described below:

1. Preliminary Treatment:
It is also called pretreatment which involves physical mechanism to treat wastewater. It
involves screening which uses bar screens to remove large solids like pieces of rags, fabric, yarn,
sticks, etc that may cause damage to equipment of the plant.
2. Primary Treatment:
It involves physical & chemical mechanisms for treatment of wastewater. When wastewater
enters into primary tank, it stays for long time and as a result heavier particles settle to the
bottom and lighter particles float on the surface. In this treatment settled and floatable
materials are eliminated by using flocculation and coagulation process and then it is passed to
secondary or biological treatment.
3. Secondary Treatment:
Wastewater that enters into secondary tank is free from physical particles and it involves
biological mechanism. Most of the ETPs use biological treatment which involves aerated
lagoons, activated sludge process, trickling filter and oxidation pond for the removal of BOD but
activated sludge process is the most versatile biological oxidation method employed for the
treatment of wastewater. Here, about 80% of organic waste will be removed and then
subjected to tertiary treatment.
4. Tertiary Treatment:
It involves physical, chemical and biological mechanism to remove residual suspended solids,
dissolved solids and etc.. that are not removed in the preceding treatment levels. Wastewater
after this treatment is finally fit for disposal or for further use.
EFFLUENT TREATMENT PLANT (ETP) OF GATM:

The process that have been followed for the treatment of waste water in GATM is as follows.

Collection Equalizing Cooling

Influent IN
Tank Tank Tower

Primary Neutralizing Neutralizing Neutralizing

Sedimentation Tank 3 Tank 2 Tank 1
Tank (Poly Acryl ( Alum) (Sulphuric
Amine) Acid)

Biological Secondary
Anoxic Tank Contact Sedimentation Effluent Out
Oxidation Tank
BCO

De-watering
Sludge to Thickener Unit
Khui Goth Tank
(Filter Press)
Collection Tank:
All the Influent water from Industry comes in to Collection Tank passing through the Fixed and
moveable sieve.

Equalization Tank:
Equalization Tank in any Treatment Plant serves the purpose of maintaining desired flow rate as
well as for making mixture homogeneous. It is evident that effluent of any industry is
heterogeneous in nature to bring the best out of any wastewater treatment plant
homogeneous mixture is must in Equalization Tank.

Cooling Tower:
A cooling tower is a heat rejection device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through
the cooling of a water stream to a lower temperature. It is used in ETP for the desired
temperature in treatment of Waste Water.

What does a cooling tower water treatment system typically control?

A cooling tower water treatment system might be made up of the technologies necessary to
regulate the level of:

 Alkalinity: will dictate potential of calcium carbonate scale

 Chlorides: can be corrosive to metals
 Hardness: contributes to scale in the cooling tower and on heat exchangers
 Iron: when combined with phosphate, it can foul equipment
 Organic matter: promotes microorganism growth, which can lead to fouling, corrosion,
and other system issues
 Silica: known for causing hard scale deposits
 Sulfates: like chlorides, can be extremely corrosive to metals
 Total dissolved solids (TDS): contribute to scaling, foaming, and/or corrosion
 Totals suspended solids (TSS): undissolved contaminants that can cause scaling,
biofilms, and/or corrosion

Neutralizing Tank:
The purpose of neutralization is to adjust the pH value to meet the requirements of the
different processing units in the wastewater treatment system.

Neutralization may be used in order to treat acid wastewaters containing metals, the method
comprising increasing the pH of the acid waste by addition of an alkaline reagent, to form a
precipitate and collecting the precipitate. This way the incoming solution is pH adjusted to the
optimum range for precipitating metals as hydroxides.
We have three neutralization tanks in ETP unit. N1 is used for the treatment of waste water
with Sulphuric acid whereas N2 is used for coagulation with the help of Alum and N3 is used for
flocculation using the Polymer (Poly Acryl Amine).

Primary Sedimentation Tank:

The wastewater containing mainly lightweight organic matter is settled in the primary
sedimentation tank (PST). Due to involvement of many unknown parameters under settling of
light weight, sticky, and non-regular shaped particles. The primary sedimentation tank generally
removes 30 to 40% of the total BOD and 50 to 70% of suspended solids from the raw sewage.
The flow through velocity of 1 cm/sec at average flow is used for design with detention period
in the range of 90 to 150 minutes. This horizontal velocity will be generally effective for removal
of organic suspended solids of size above 0.1 mm. Effluent weirs are provided at the effluent
end of the rectangular tanks, and around the periphery in the circular tanks. The sludge
collection hopper is provided near the center in circular tank and near the influent end in
rectangular tanks. A baffle is provided ahead of the effluent weir for removal of floating matter.
This scum formed on the surface is periodically removed from the tank mechanically or
manually.

Anoxic Tank:
In this tank Anoxic environment has been developed which lowers nitrate level in waste stream
that makes heterotrophic bacteria use nitrate as an oxygen source to break down organic
substances.

Denitrification in wastewater treatment is the conversion of nitrate (N03) to nitrogen gas (N2).
It is a process that involves the reduction of nitrogen present in waste streams to an acceptable
level so the treated water can be discharged into the environment via streams, ponds, lakes,
etc.

Biological Contact Oxidation BCO:

Biological processes are often the preferred choice for treatment of wastewater. They are
considered to have low environmental impact and costs in comparison with other types of
treatments, because they require only slight or no addition of chemicals and reasonable
amounts of energy. They are based on the ability of microorganisms to transform the
contaminants and use them as sources of energy, carbon and other minerals which are
essential for their growth.
Microorganisms that can degrade azo dyes are necessary for efficient treatment of textile
wastewater. These microorganisms need to have enzymes such as azoreductases and oxidases.
The first enzyme is required to cleave the azo bonds and make the aromatic amines more
accessible. Oxidases are fundamental to break down the previously released aromatic amines.
However, using pure cultures for treatment of wastewater remains a challenge .

Secondary Sedimentation Tank:

The micro-organism oxidize organic matter, in the presence of abundant quantity of oxygen in
the aeration tank. The suspended and attached growth processes require separation of biomass
from the biological process effluent to produce the secondary quality effluent, and for return of
the microorganisms to the bioreactor (i.e., in the case of the activated sludge process) and
wasting of excess biomass (i.e., waste sludge from all process types). This can be achieved by
secondary sedimentation

Thickener Tank:
The main goal of sludge thickening is to reduce the sludge volume by removing as much as
possible of the water content of sludge, leading to the increase of the solids content of sludge
Sludge is allowed to settle and compact. The thickened sludge is withdrawn from the bottom of
the thickener. To improve thickening some chemicals are added, this process is called sludge
conditioning

De-watering Unit (Filter Press):

Sludge separated from the water line during secondary sedimentation treatment consists of
microorganisms and inert materials that has been wasted from the secondary treatment
processes. Thus 9% of this sludge is organic this sludge contains from 0.8 to 2%. In addition to
solids, sludge contains a high percent of water. Filter belts are squeezing machines in which the
sludge is inserted between two moving belts resulting in the separation of solids from liquids.