Recycling & Reuse of Water in Industry
Water is an essential production material for most industrial sites. In some industries, such as the microelectronics production, it is one the most significant expenses.
Increasing droughts, floods, regulation, competition over abstraction, change the water availability and quality, and lead many industries to look for alternative resources.
When considering water recycling, there are many specific issues to consider for industrial sites :
- Ensure an uninterrupted and constant quality water supply, and avoid risks of plant shutdown due to water shortage (drought, etc...)
- Reduce your cost of water consumption and wastewater management
- Integrate into future changes in local regulation and national policy
- Take advantage of best practice and regulation such as the BREF (Best practice reference documents in the European integrated pollution prevention control regulation - IPPC)
- Improve your Corporate Responsibility report through the reduction of environmental impacts
Various configurations and cases are possible such as :
- on-site water recycling,
- cascade recycling of at the point-of-use,
- reuse of treated municipal wastewater and stormwater,
- Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD).
Recycled water can respond to most industrial water needs from utility water (washing, cleaning, fire fighting, irrigation) to boiler feed water, process water and ultra-pure water.
Specific water treatment technologies and processes also respond to the diversity of industrial applications. These are a few examples :
- white water and condensates recycling in the Pulp & Paper industry,
- recycling of produced water in the Oil & Gas industry,
- loop-recycling of chemical baths,
- rinsing baths, solutions, metal recovery...