Task
AgustaWestland is an international helicopters producer, using varius chemical processes for parts/planes manufacturing. Such wastewater, ie. from electroplating processes, typically contains heavy metals, salinity and toxic compounds like cyanides. Due to characteristics of the wastewater and to the law’s requirements AgustaWestland could not discharge its waste into the sewerage system or directly to environment. This caused problems with high costs or wastewater utilization (due to the fact that a specialized entity was in charge of it) process water preparation costs.
Solution
After consultations with the client, the group of experts proposed our ROVAPO® solution of zero-liquid-discharge technology. The relatively small amount of wastewater that comes from the production responded perfectly to the ROVAPO® purification system in a configuration for electroplating wastewater, as it contains lots of dissolved salts, metals and other non-bidegradable and harmful substances.
Streams from the production plant are separated and then treated with series of specially selected chemical reactions, reverse osmosis REVOS units and low temperature EVAPO evaporators. The recovered water is of supreme quality and of very low conductivity (below approx. 10 µS). Special physico-chemical processes also results in a significant reduction in sludge quantities generated by the treatment system. ROVAPO® allows to recover up to 98% of water and then reuse it. Comparable ZLD systems may recycle ~85%.
Benefits
The End User significantly reduced his operating costs of the wastewater treatment plant and also those of the water purification plant. An additional benefit of superior quality water is the reduction in the need for process water preparation. Only in the first year AgustaWestland production plant spared 20.000m3 of desalinated water converted to a production facility.
