Solutions for industrial water treatment

Solutions for

industrial water treatment

Every industry needs water – from cooling, heating, fabricating, processing and washing to steam production and even transportation. Endress+Hauser has a wide portfolio of measurement instrumentation and automation solutions, as well as decades of experience in optimising industrial wastewater treatment processes.

Industrial production accounts for 20% of global water consumption. Depending on the application and industry, the water needs to have different properties to ensure the quality of the finished product and the overall safety of production. Furthermore, water must be safely discharged. No matter if the water ends up in a natural body of water or in the sewers, in most cases some form of wastewater treatment is necessary.

“Generally, water treatment in an industrial plant has the same goals as in a municipal treatment plant. Most of the established applications that are used in municipal plants can be found in industrial water treatment plants. The main challenge is to balance out the water quality and the treatment costs,” explains Heidrun Tippe, global industry manager: Water and Wastewater, Endress+Hauser.

Membrane filtration One example is with membrane filtration. Depending on the pore size, membrane filtration can be applied to achieve different treatment targets: from mechanical separation of bacteria or viruses up to single ions for desalination during the preparation of process water. It can also be used for water reuse by filtering already used water. The main parameters for optimising the membrane filtration are inlet quality and pressure. Measuring these can help to prevent damage to the membranes. Endress+Hauser has a range of pressure and quality sensors that are perfectly fit for this task.

Another challenge faced by both municipal and industrial wastewater operators is sludge handling. Disposing of sludge is expensive, so it is common practice to reduce the amount of sludge – either by dewatering it through the addition of conditioners like polymers or lime milk, or by anaerobic digestion.

The pulp and paper and food industries produce wastewater with a high biological load and anaerobic digestion is a very efficient pre-treatment process. Plus, it generates biogas, which can be used as an energy source for other treatment processes. Basic process control like the measurement of the inlet load, level, temperature, pH/ORP and biogas production is needed to monitor the process accurately and optimise it. One of the toughest measurement challenges is the biogas flow because of the high water saturation of the gas and very low pressures. Endress+Hauser’s unique ultrasonic flow devices offer a solution to this challenge.