Effective Wastewater Treatment In Speciality Chemicals Industry

Chemical Industries produce a large amount of wastewater due to continuous washing, cleaning & manufacturing processes that go on.

Our client, located at Tarapur MIDC, established in the 70s, is one of the prominent leaders in the manufacturing of specialty chemicals with products comprising stearates, maleates, adipates, polymeric, sebacates, benzoates, phthalates & plasticizers.

Tarapur MIDC, being one of the most polluted, faces stern attitudes of current environment bodies such as NGT and CPCB.

The EHS department of the industry was under constant pressure to maintain varying COD, BOD, and TDS levels and control the sludge MLSS development.

This industry tried various local liquid cultures to reduce effluent parameters. However, it was incompetent at treating toxic, tough-to-degrade wastewater, which could not meet the local PCB norms.

The Initial Approach and Challenges

After a complete study of the plant through questionnaire, on-site visit, and discussion EHS team, our expert understood numerous challenges to be addressed: –

Key Issues

• Control over varying COD and BOD levels due to different production streams was important; therefore, it was important to fine-tune the system and reduce outlet parameters.
• Ongoing operation of Biological system like a batch process which provided less time for microbes to get acclimatized to incoming effluent. Here, it was important to optimize the ETP from a batch process to a continuous one without compromising the parameters.
• Foul odour generation due to inadequate treatment, which was resolved using proper plant maintenance & incorporation of optimized bacterial cultures.

Treatability Study

Before planning a treatment scheme, it was crucial to perform a treatability study to understand the wastewater characteristics and devise an appropriate treatment regime specific to their effluent.

Organica’s unique wastewater treatment based study, “BioSure,” is a laboratory-scale trial that confirms the suitability of the bacterial consortium present in our product and their development in the effluent.

These trials were specifically designed to provide a clear indication of whether our microbes can grow in a given type of effluent without compromising the reduction of pollutants in the effluent.

Microscopic analysis reports of the sample revealed satisfactory growth and development of our microbes in the effluent.

After this study, we decided to go with a treatment regime combining Cleanmaxx 202, Bioclean XLR & Microbster. There were many factors that made Organica select this set of products; some of them where

1. The products in the effluent:-  The presence of products such as stearates, maleates, adipates, polymeric, sebacates, benzoates, and phthalate plasticizers makes it difficult for ordinary and single-strain products to sustain and perform in the effluent as they are tough to degrade hazardous compounds. Cleanmaxx 202 contains a specialized heterogenous concentrated consortium of microbes that promotes high rapid biomass generation which is important in degrading tough compounds in effluent. Howsoever, due to variation in affluent, it was important to provide extra durability to our microbes, and hence, Bioclean XLR was introduced, which was specifically designed to accelerate the growth of microbes under tough conditions.
2. The plant design: – The plant was designed in a conventional manner of an ASP with one Aeration tank. However, it was a batch process where the effluent was channelized by pumps to each section of treatment, thereby giving a very lesser amount of retention time. This batch process was converted to a continuous process to maximize the plant space & give more retention time.
3. Elevated sludge or MLSS levels: – Microbster – our organic replacement of conventional nutrient additives, was introduced to provide nutrient supply in terms of phosphorus & nitrogen to maintain the health of microbes in the system.

The Entire bioremediation program ran for 60 Days. Every parameter was closely monitored & modified when required to meet the desired results. The process was divided into 3 parts, where each one was focused on a specific part of the plant.

1. Plant Optimization: – We recommended changes in the plant for its transition from batch to a continuous process. All the leakages & dead zones were strategically removed without the addition of any new equipment, thus keeping the cost at a minimum.
2. Microbial Dosing: – We planned a 60-day dosing schedule. It included strategic incorporation of Cleanmaxx 202, Bioclean XLR, and Microbster. Initially, the first 4 weeks were crucial, and therefore, dosing was kept high to naturally increase the population of healthy microbes and eliminate incompetent microbes. In the next 4 weeks, the amount decreased & the primary agenda for dosing was to maintain a constant population of microbes in the system.
3. Increase in Flow rate: – We kept the target of increasing the flow to 300 m3/day till the 60^th. Initially, we started with 50 m3/day and then gradually increased the flow every week.

Results and Discussions

• We observed a 90%+ reduction in COD and BOD levels after 45 days of treatment. 95%+ reduction was observed in COD and BOD levels after 60 days of treatment
• Desired MLVSS: An MLSS ratio of 0.7 was observed, and the required F/M ratio was maintained.
• Due to the optimization of the plant, there was a 33% increase in the operational capacity of plants within 60 days of treatment. The flow was increased to 300 m3.
• The problem of the obnoxious odour was completely eliminated.

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