Understand Industrial Wastewater Treatment

Pollution is on the rise and is quite detrimental to the environment. The water bodies have already been polluted and it is not stopping any time soon. One of the many ways a nation tries to curb water pollution is by treating and decontaminating the industrial sludge before it reaches the sea or a major water body. This is where wastewater treatment comes into play. It is a procedure through which impurities like dirt, stones, and other contaminants are removed from wastewater or sewage before that water is released into the ocean or in some cases, even reused. Industrial Wastewater treatment is used for cleaning out the wastewater generated by various industries. Such water treatment plants have increased in number following the observed impacts of various industrial water pollutants on the environment.

Before Industrial Wastewater treatment is discussed it is essential to understand how a general or a sewage based wastewater treatment plants work. In any wastewater treatment plant, the cleaning or decontamination procedure is divided into three types of treatments called the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Treatment. There is a pre-treatment process before it all actually starts. This treatment is completely mechanical in nature. Firstly, the sewage water is made to flow through a chamber of gravel stones. This helps to separate the grit from the water. A bar screen then filters the wastewater of larger objects. Then there are coarse and fine screens which filter out smaller waste objects like matches and feces.

Next up is a primary treatment system which is basically sedimentation done in primary settling tanks. In these tanks heavier particles settle down and are later disposed off. The supernatant is then transferred to the Secondary Treatment where dissolved organic material is consumed by bacteria requiring these nutrients. These secondary treatments also include various disinfection procedures that kill harmful bacteria. The remaining sludge then undergoes sludge treatment where the harmless bacteria are also removed using incineration. The remaining wastewater then has to go through Tertiary Treatment where newer technologies like microfiltration or very fine membranes are used for filtering the water and cleansing it to a purity that is as good as the natural water. Water from the tertiary treatment is often reused for domestic purposes.Industrial wastewater treatment involves cleansing and decontamination of the industrial wastewater that mostly consists of harmful chemicals. Its composition is quite different from that of sewage water. It mostly consists of heavy metals, resins, pesticides, fertilizers, nitrates, suspended solids and the high volume of particulate matter. To treat this wide variety of waste, different treatments are used accordingly. Brine Treatments are used to remove dissolved metal ions from the sludge. This process either reduces the volume of the effluent or increases the recovery of freshwater and salts. Evaporation procedures are majorly used for brine treatments because of the fact that they generate pure effluents. Sedimentation is yet another process that is used to remove solid wastes. If the solids are very fine, other processes like ultrafiltration and flocculation are used. A number of devices are also used for separating the oil and water mixed waste that is generated from natural gas industries. General sewage treatment methods are used to treat the biodegradable waste matter from industrial sludge. Activated Sludge treatment is a process that uses oxygen and microbes to oxidize the contaminants that produce a waste slurry which is later disposed off.

Apart from these, industrial Wastewater Treatment plants use other newer technologies to ensure the proper treatment and decontamination of wastewater generated by various factories and industries. These newer technologies are more efficient at cleansing the sludge than the older methods and are more frequently used these days.

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K V Gopalakrishnan is a writer who has very good experience in writing articles & blogs. The writer has a flair for writing and he keeps on writing various articles and blogs related to the industry.