Special Focus on Effluent Treatment Plants

Effluent treatment in industries

Y, V, V, Satyanarayana Head - Technology Division Ion Exchange (India) Ltd.

Introduction
TODAY industrial sources are major contributors of water pollution. Water is an essential raw material in almost all manufacturing plants. Industries use many different raw materials and manufacturing processes to create a wide range of products and hence the problem of effluent treatment is different from industry to industry. Some industrial operations produce highly concentrated organic wastes, other processes produces effluents which are dilute. Some industries may not produce any liquid waste. Industries such as pulp and paper, leather tanneries, sugar mills, oil refineries, heavy chemical plants etc. generate large quantity of waste water which is discharged untreated or inadequately treated into natural water ways. If the effluents are not treated properly, they may cause water pollution that may lead to proliferation of variety of diseases. Also, untreated effluents may disturb the aqua ecology and flora and fauna in receiving water bodies. Chemically polluted water either dam&ges tbe growth crops or changes the aquatic vegetation due to artificial nutrients and is totally unfit for livestock to drink. Hence it is very important to plan proper treatment program for the industrial effluents. Management of effluents generated from industrial complexes is gaining importance from both the pollution prevention as well as water recycle point points of view. Industrial effluents are now being looked upon as an alternate source for water for specific uses. As water shortage increases, and is expected to increase further in the near future, alternate sources of water supply are gaining importance. Of these, industrial effluent recycle is most successful because of its consistent availability. ' CHEMICAL BUSINESS o APRIL 2006

Characteristics of industrial effluents

The large number of water pollutants may be broadly classified under the following categories : I, Inorganic pollutants This group of pollutants consists of inorganic salts, mineral acids, finely divided metals or metal compounds etc. These pollutants are able to kill or injure fish and other aquatic life and they can interfere with the suitability of water for drinking of industrial use. II, Organic pollutants This group of pollutants include oxygen demanding wastes, disease causing agents, plant nutrients, sewage, synthetic organic compounds and oil etc. Dissolved oxygen (DO) is an essential requirements in any aquatic life. The optimum DO in natural water is 4-6 ppm. Decrease in this DO in water body is an index of pollution mainly due to organic material undergoing degradation by bacterial activity in tbe presence of DO, the net result being the deoxygenation process and quick DO depletion. These pollutants are usually measured in terms of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD),

III,

Thermal pollutants Cooling water is discharged at raised temperature and

thereby increasing the temperature of water body. Furthermore, there are ecological effects of the cooling water stream flow. It decreases DO of water and affects aquatic life adversely.

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IV. Radioactive pollutants Harmful radiation may result in water environments from the waste of uranium and thorium mining and refining from nuclear power plants, from industrial, medical and scientific use of radioactive materials. V. Sediments Sediments generally consist of suspended solids a'nd colloidal solids that are generated in industrial processes. They may be organic or inorganic in nature.

sedimentation techniques. Also, the neutralisation and precipitation processesproduce settleable solids, which need to be separated effectively using efficient sedimentation techniques. Following sedimentation units are available: a. b. c. d. e. Circular clarifiers Rectangular clarifiers Lamella clarifiers Tube settlers High rate solid contact clarifiers

The suspended solids which are large in size can be readily settled and hence can be separated from effluents by simple gravity settling by providing quiescent conditions in VI. Infectious agents sedimentation tanks. When the suspended solids are of The waste water discharged from municipalities; sanitosmaller size (colloidal particles), it takes very long time to ria, tanning etc. may contain micro-organisms, which are casettle them. To increase their settling velocities coagulants pable of producing disease in human being and other livestock. in the form of alum, lime, ferrous sulphate, chlorinated copperas, etc. are used. Polymers are also added along with VII. Plant nutrients coagulants to reduce the dosages and increase the effecPlant nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous are able to tiveness of coagulants. Usually, flash mixers and flocculator stimulate the growth of aquatic plants, which interfere with tanks are provided to mix the chemicals and allow the water uses and later decay to produce disagreeable odours flocculation to occur. Units like high rate conta.ct clarifiers and add to the BOD of the water. Presence of nutrients include flash mixing, flocculation and clarification in one encourages algae growth, which decreases DO levels, and single unit improving the overall performance. Also, units creates problems in treatments. Nutrients normally include like lamella settlers and tube settlers provide high surface nitrates and phosphates. area for settlement of suspended solids.

Treatment methods for industrial effiuents

There are many treatment methods available for treatment of industrial effluents. Method of treatment mainly depend on the characteristics of wastewater generated from a particular industry. Following sections describes commonly used treatment methods for removal of various pollutants. Equalisation of effiuents Any industry generates effluents from various sources having different characteristics. Many processes are either of batch type or continuous type.The effluent treatment plant cannot operate efficiently under these varying conditions. Hence it is necessary to collect all the streams into a single tank and mix them thoroughly so as to produce effluent of uniform quality to the subsequent treatment units. So equalisation tank of suitable capacity is necessary in all these effluent treatment plants. Before mixing all the streams, it should be studied whether any streams can be handled effectively by segregating them. There are many treatment methods available to handle industrial effluents. Sedimentation Suspended solids present in effluents are removed using 46

Flotation
Oil and grease and suspended solids whose specific gravity is less than water can not settle and hence cannot be removed using sedimentation process. Flotation technique is used to remqve such pollutants from effluents. In this process, fine air bubbles are produced and induced into the flotation tank where these air bubbles get attached to the oil and grease or light suspended solids making them to float on to the surface at faster rate. The matter thus separated is then scraped away from surface and disposed off suitably. Biological methods Biological treatment is used in to treat organic pollutants that are contributing to BOD and COD. To provide reduction of ammonia in the effluent using advanced biological treatment, nitrification is necessary. Biological systems can be divided into two basic types: aerobic (treatment takes place in the presence of oxygen) and anaerobic (treatment takes place in the absence of oxygen). 1. Aerobic bioiogicai treatment methods Medium strength to low strength effluent can be treated using aerobic biological methods. Usually aerobic treatment CHEMICAL BUSINESS o APRIL 2006

methods give high organic removals and many times follow the anaerobic treatment. As it is a natural process, it does not produce any hazardous sludge. In fact the sludge generated from biological processes is rich in nutrients and can be used as fertiliser. Some pharmaceutical effluents are having high COD/BOD ratio and hence are not easily biodegradable. In these cases, aerobic biological processes with acclimatised cultures can give good results. Following technologies are available in aerobic biological processes. a. Activated sludge process b. Trickling filters c. Rotating biological contactors d. Submerged aerobic fixed film unit e. Fluidised aerobic biological unit f. Sequential batch reactors g. Membrane bio-reactors

4. It does not require sludge recycle thus complicated sludge recycle controls are avoided. This also saves energy and recirculation pumps are absent. 5. It does not require costly tertiary treatment units to make the effluents suitable for recycle. It makes the treatment scheme short and compact. 6. MBR produces high quality treated water which can be directly fed into the reverse osmosis (RO) system. 7. Because of high concentrations of sludge and long sludge age periods, it generates highly stabilized sludge of low volume. 8. It does not require any chemicals such as coagulants, polymers, etc. which are required in the tertiary treatment of conventional sewage treatment plant. 9. MBR also removes bacteria and viruses upto 4 to 6 log. 2. Anaerobic treatment methods

In aerobic biological treatment processes, oxygen-requiring microorganisms decompose organic and nonmetallic inorganic constituents into carbon dioxide, water, nitrates, sulfates, organic byproducts, and cellular biomass. The microorganisms are maintained by adding oxygen and nutrients (usually nitrogen and phosphorous) to the system. Activated sludge processes are suspended-growth processes in which the microorganisms are maintained in suspension within the liquid being treated. The trickling filter and RBC processes are attached growth processes, in which microorganisms grow on an inert medium (e.g., rock, wood, plastic). Sequencing batch reactors (SBR) are basically used for removal of nutrients along with BOD/COD. These SBRs are also energy efficient when compared to conventional treatment for nutrient removal. Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) is among the latest technologies in biological treatment. Submerged membranes are used in place of clarifiers to separate sludge from the waste water so as to produce high quality permeate. These MBRs can handle very high sludge concentrations in the aeration tank because of which the size of the aeration tank reduces four to five fold. As the membrane acts as a fine filter, it does not require any further treatment using sand filters, activated carbon filters, etc. MBR has the following advantages over conventional treatment processes: 1. It requires less area as the aeration tank size is very compact and does not have clarifier. 2. As tank sizes are smaller, civil works is also minimized. 3. All clarifier related problems such as sludge bulking, sludge rising, etc. are avoided and clarifier unit itself is avoided. CHEMICAL BUSINESS o APRIL 2006

Anaerobic treatment refers to various reactions and interactions that take place among the methanogens, nonmethanogens and substrates fed into the reactor as inputs. This is a complex physio-chemical and biological process involving different factors and stages of change. Highly concentrated organic effluent produced from industries can be handled efficiently and economically using anaerobic biological methods. After the invention of high rate anaerobic treatment processes, it is possible to treat even dilute effluents anaerobically. Energy in the form of biogas can be recovered which can be used as an alternative fuel in boiler or can be used to produce power. Ouantity of sludge generation is low resulting less sludge handling costs. The nutrient requirement in anaerobic process.is low. Following technologies are available in anaerobic process: a. Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor b. Fixed film reactors c. Fluidised bed reactors d. Anaerobic contact reactors e. Anaerobic filters f. Anaerobic sludge digesters (fixed dome/floating dome) Filtration Filtration is a tertiary treatment unit. After initially treating effluents for various pollutants, filtration is used to further treat them so as to make them suitable for low end use. Following are the filtration treatment units usually used in effluent treatment of industries. a. Pressure sand filters b. Multigrade filters c. Dual media/ multi media filters 47

Filtration is used to reduce TSS and turbidity in effluent. For the tertiary treatment of effluents to remove colloidal This technology may also serve to treat BOD in effluent by suspended solids and trace organics, following treatment removing BOD associated with particulate matter. A filtra- options can be used. Activated carbon filter is proved to be tion system operates by introducing an effluent to a fixed bed successful in reducing COD levels of difficult to biodegradof inert granular media. Suspended solids are removed from able effluents. Activated carbon is also used as de-chlorinathe effluent by one or more of the following processes: tion filter to remove excess residual chlorine. straining, interception, impaction, sedimentation, and adsorption. In multimedia filtration, a series of layers, each with Chlorination a progressively smaller grain size medium (travelling from Chlorination is applied for disinfection, odour control and inflow to outflow of the bed) are used in the filtration bed. also COD reductions. Chlorination can be done using soThis design allows solids to penetrate deeper into the bed dium hypochloride, bleaching powder and gaseous chlobefore becoming fixed, thus increasing the capacity of the rine. An effective alternative to this is mixed oxidant process bed and decreasing the buildup of head loss in the unit. (MlOX). This process uses brine solution for the production Typical filtration media include garnet, crushed anthracite of mixed oxidants consisting of hypochlorous acid, chlorine coal, resin beads, and sand. Though downflow (gravity flow) dioxide, ozone, oxygen, etc. Mixed oxidents are two to ten systems are the most common, upflow and biflow (influent times more effective than chlorine and requires low dosis introduced above and below the filter medium, and the ages. They are safer to use and also THM formation is only effluent discharges from the center of the filter medium) Vz to 1/5th compared to chlorine. filtration units can also be used. Adsorption Granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption is used in industries to treat trace organics in effluent after initial treatment for various pollutants. Adsorption is a process in which soluble or suspended materials in water are bonded onto the surface of a solid medium. Activated attraction to most adsorbates (the constituents to be treated), and the fact that it is hydrophobic (water will not occupy bonding sites and interfere with the adsorption process). Constituents in the effluent bond onto the GAC grains until all surface bonding sites are occupied. At this point, the carbon is considered to be "spent", and requires regeneration, cleaning, or disposal.

Selection of effluent treatment plant

Selection of suitable effluent treatment plant is very important for its successful operation and also to meet the objective of pollution prevention. As the effluent characteristics vary from plant to plant depending on the type of product, manufacturing process, etc., it is very important to establish the'raw effluent flow and characteristics from various sources. If the plant is an existing plant, it is strongly recommended that the flow measurements and -detailed characterisation of effluents is to be carried out. Also, it is recommended that treatability studies on effluent be conducted to establish the optimum treatment scheme and design criteria.

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