I am handling a pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plant which uses activated sludge treatment followed by MBR.
The wastewater has COD ranging from 200 to 300 gpm on average and it needs to be reduced to < 30 mg/l - 100 mg/l.
I am screening various AOP' s (advanced oxidation process) and other BAT's (best available technologies) for reducing the COD from the waste water.
I am investigating some alternative options such as:
Ozone/Perozone
UV Peroxide
Activated Carbon
Resins
RO
Ultrasonic
AOP followed by a fluidized bed reactor ( FBR)
Wet Air Oxidation
Are there any other methods that are worth screening or does someone have experience with similar (pharmaceutical) wastewater and COD removal to very low levels?
I am not sure what is happening to my responses. I have tried deleting and re-posting to no success.
Please email me at andrew@waterandoilsolutions.com.au and I can email you the response. I believe I can help with troubleshooting the problem. My company specialises in MBR processes and removal of complex synthetic chemicals from wastewater.
Using micro algae technology we have been successfully handling COD BOD Colour removal and pH correction without addition of any chemicals and we have installed several scaled up systems in India
Any specific solution will be dependent on the flow and COD composition remaining after first stage biological process . I would suggest you to check for the composition of COD at first so that you can estimate whether it is biodegradable or not.
Yes. we have successfully employed micro algae technology to reduce COD to very low levels in various industries in India and it is possible with pharma waste water also
@ what you need to optimise your current ETP to optimum levels.If you are able to give me inlet/outlet values for BOD/COD it will make able to provide some suggestions now I working for one of pharma giant as consultant for ETP upgradation as capacity has increased.
We are developing a next-generation plasma water treatment system (fourth state of matter, ionized gas) that generates UV in addition hydroxyl radicals and other reactive species. We have had success in treatability tests with pharmaceutical wastewater. Please contact me if you'd like more info about it.
I am starting a trial next week looking at COD/BOD reduction using peroxymonosulfate. I would like to know how your studies work out, and I can keep you up to date on mine as well.
Hi Asher, Along with the AOP treatment, quick COD monitoring will be important to determine efficiency and also are you meeting the final limits. We are involved in a similar project in Europe to reduce hard COD in water intensive industries. Using peroxide AOP or O3 which can product peroxide, will lead to false high COD results when measuring with the dichromate method. Our project discovered H2O2 is a positive interference to the CODCr method. We have a green chemistry method that generates the COD results in 15min. It is available as on-line and lab units. Send me an email rmenegotto@mantech-inc.com if you would like additional information. Robert
You should really consider the 'hybrid' treatment processes of combining adsorption with AOP processes along with enhanced biological treatment, once the recalcitrant COD is made more biodegradable. Since they already have MBR it may be that this can be done as a "side-stream"?
Once approach that I see great future opportunities is nano-bubbles to provide very efficient AOP with O2 and/or ozone (see NABAS technolgy). They provide lots of OH- free-radicals very efficiently. feel free to contact me for further support (Farid Turan at MBR Solutions Ltd. UK).
Another important factor which you should consider is wether your effluent is BIO-DEGRADABLE. If yes then you can use aerobic treatment as well. In order to determine that you need to calclulate the ratio COD/BOD5. If this number is around 1,5 then most of your effluent is bio-degradable. If it's over 3 then most of your effluent is not, so you need to apply oxidation methods.
Hi Eros, thank you for the comment. Can you give me an example of this set of microbes please ? The degradation of ammonia is a real pain, especially when it's in inorganic form.
Also remember that pharmaceutical waste might contain some traces of materials that could kill some microbes ??????
hi George, the right microbe set can degrade what was not traditionally considered biodegradable. high levels of ammonia and benzene and phenolates are easily degraded. cheers
Hi Asher, if you give me your starting COD levels we can give you an idea of size and costs our technology would be. either as a pre-treatment or to polish your final effluent down to 30ppm. we offer BDD and BDD + adsorption.
OK Asher that was in your question 300gpm ~60m3/hr and what is the starting COD? We can do a quick calculation for you. It would definitely be possible to achieve the levels you are looking at but we need to assess if it is viable. Just give me your starting COD for now and we can carry on the conversation. Regards
As per my experience and understanding, MBR would not have been required in this case, simple activated sludge system then having Pressure Sand Filter+GAC Filter and done.
MBR is an expensive solution for such less pollution.
Achieving of Results from COD 300ppm to 30 - 100 ppm is normally an easy job which could be achieved by simple Activated sludge Treatment without any other addition. However you are using MBR which is quite expensive in this regards can achieve it easily no need to worry about any other process you mentioned. 50ppm is very easy to achieve.
In addition if you wish to polish extra the treated wastewater, simply have a GAC Filter, which will remove odor and any color and will bring down the COD may be up to 20ppm.
We have successful installations in Pharmaceuticals as well Food & Beverages and got very good good results with Simply Activated Sludge Treatment where the Inlet COD was 400 - 500ppm.