Reverse osmosis filtration system pharmaceutical waste water deep treatment

Client background:

Belarus project, a pharmaceutical company approached us, they have a finished project that has passed environmental expertise and they are currently looking for someone who can deliver all the equipment at once and set up its entire operation.

They have a small volume of wastewater - 23 m3/day. According to the technology, the water after flotation will be fed to filters (sand and sorption) after the reverse osmosis of the 1st and 2nd stage.

The scheme of water purification there is as follows: wastewater enters the treatment of flotation, after which it is sent for post-treatment in sand-sorption filters (based on the daily output, hourly should be about 1.5m3-2m3 to have a reserve). Filters can be made of fiberglass, as they will be operated in a heated room. After passing the filters, the water enters the first purification on reverse osmosis (capacity 23m3/day) with membranes type ESPA. This membrane is selective to organic substances and multi-charge ions, and passes single-charged ions Na+ , Cl, which allows to reduce the volume of concentrate. The water purified at this stage will be further discharged into the sewage system. Concentrate after the first reverse osmosis (volume of about 2-3 m3/day) will go to the second reverse osmosis treatment station with a membrane type CPA or analogue.

Such a scheme is necessary for precise removal of drug compounds from the wastewater, as well as to reduce the volume of salt concentrate (to simplify the process of disposal).

According to the project the initial water will have approximately the following characteristics (before treatment by flotation):

Suspended solids: 700 mg/l

BOD: 1200 mgO2/l

COD: 3000 mgO2/l

Ammonium ion, nitrogen: 30 mg/l

Iron: 8 mg/l

Phenol: 0,5 mg/l.

synthetic surfactants: 900 mg/L.

Unfortunately, the production process is not yet up and running and we cannot say for certain the efficiency of the flotation process because we cannot perform the tests. Usually, according to our experience, suspended solids are reduced by 5-10 times or better, COD and BOD by at least 2 times, but usually also 5-10. The number of SPAW, iron is also reduced.

For discharge into the sewage system the requirements are not very stringent they could easily be achieved using only flotation and sand-sorption filters, but the customer is worried that not all drugs can be removed in this way and insists on installing reverse osmosis, as it is in the project.

Provide professional advice to customers:

Process flow:

Raw water tank - booster pump - multi-media filter - activated carbon filter - precision filter - sand and carbon water tank - scale inhibitor - primary high pressure pump - primary RO - product water tank (primary concentrated water tank)

Primary concentrated water tank - secondary pressurized magnetic - precision filter 5/1 µ - secondary high-pressure pump - secondary RO - product water tank (secondary concentrated water tank)

Second-stage concentrated water tank - third-stage pressurized magnetic - precision filter 5/1 µ - third-stage high-pressure pump - third-stage RO - product water tank (third-stage concentrated water tank)