Membrane filtration is no longer an option for wastewater treatment — it’s now the standard as discharge limits have moved past what traditional clarifying technologies are able to meet. As wastewater limits continue to get tighter and the cost of fresh water continues to increase, the topic of water is becoming a mandatory discussion point in every industry. We’ve compiled a list of questions and concerns we hear from our customers.
Commercial dairies have two options — to pretreat and pay to discharge to municipal sewerage or to operate an in-house treatment plant (and yes, we can evaluate and provide a solution for your in-house treatment plant).
These DAF units require significant amounts of chemicals to try to meet the increased discharge limits and also can often be the hydraulic bottleneck of the treatment plant. CFR can upgrade a conventional biological treatment plant to a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) by decommissioning the DAF, and associated chemical costs, and replacing it with ultrafiltration membranes. These ultrafiltration membranes provide a solid barrier for solids separation and provide a better quality effluent with reduced operating costs.
Allowing the production plant to run at 100% capacity by making process upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant. The WWTP can often be the bottleneck for production if the plant has expanded in recent years while the WWTP has not. By upgrading a WWTP from conventional biological treatment to an MBR, we can reduce the hydraulic bottleneck and improve effluent quality.
No (and forget about sending a fruitcake). Membrane filtration is no longer an option for wastewater treatment — it’s now the standard as discharge limits have moved past what traditional clarifying technologies are able to meet. Phosphorus limits is a hot topic in today’s wastewater treatment world. Since phosphorus is generally the limiting factor in biological growth, most water bodies have a mass loading of phosphorus that cannot be exceeded, or it risks putting the waterway into a eutrophic state (think algae bloom). This results in very tight phosphorus discharge limits being enforced upon industrial wastewater permit holders that direct discharge to a surface body of water. Being able to meet these limits takes careful planning or treatment plants can be faced with exorbitant operating costs when trying to suddenly meet these limits that weren’t accounted for in the design. Complete Filtration has field proven processes that can upgrade existing treatment plants to meet today’s discharge standards.
There are ample incentives to make sure water usage and discharges are being properly managed. The efficiency of water varies greatly from plant to plant. The best fluid plants use about one-half gallon of water per gallon of milk processed. The least efficient plants use 2 gallons or more of water per gallon of milk processed.
Complete Filtration Resources has the engineering capability to design cutting-edge solutions to allow for dairy plants to operate a sustainable wastewater treatment plant that can incorporate water reuse and/or generating electricity from biogas. We will be able to conduct the necessary tests in order to provide the most suitable and cost effective treatment system for your plant.