Advanced Wastewater Treatment Solution Supplied to Indian Firm

Desalitech (USA), a provider of high-efficiency water production and treatment solutions, announced today that it will supply an advanced wastewater treatment system to UPL Environmental Engineers, Ltd. (UPLEEL), one of India’s leading environmental engineering construction and project management companies.

The Desalitech system will process 200 cubic meters per day (m3/d, 53,000 gallon per day) of industrial wastewater as part of a zero-liquid-discharge (ZLD) treatment process designed to minimise disposal costs and environmental impact by virtually eliminating liquid waste. Desalitech’s Closed Circuit Desalination (CCD) reverse osmosis (RO) solution will be a key element in the plant’s ZLD system, cutting the costs and energy consumption of downstream components by as much as 50 percent.

“Desalitech’s technology provides superior operational efficiency by greatly reducing effluent waste while using less energy than any other reverse osmosis solution on the market,” said Santhosh Nair, Managing Director of UPLEEL. “It is a smart investment that will pay for itself in six months. But beyond obvious cost benefits, Desalitech solutions provide a degree of control and flexibility that we haven’t had before.”

The Gujarat plant (one of the several units in Gujarat) produces up to 6,000 metric tons per year of various pesticides for agricultural use. The process of manufacture of pesticides generates a wastewater effluent stream that requires processing prior to disposal. ZLD is an emerging water treatment goal for waste minimisation and water reclamation intended to eliminate liquid waste and its impact on the environment. Typically comprised of biological treatment followed by RO pretreatment for removal of components harmful to RO followed by microfiltration, RO and evaporators, each subsequent step in a ZLD system is more expensive than the previous, in terms of both capital and operating costs of the equipment. High recovery reverse osmosis increases the concentration of brine and reduces the energy needed to evaporate effluent, thereby reducing the overall equipment costs and energy requirements of a ZLD operation.

Although conventional multi-stage RO system can be used in ZLD processes, conventional RO is limited in the degree to which they can concentrate waste and can consume significant amounts of energy. Typical multi-stage conventional RO systems operate at a maximum of 88% recovery. Desalitech’s CCD systems typically operate at 94% recovery, cutting the amount of brine waste generated and the associated downstream treatment costs in half. This can produce savings of thousands or even tens of thousands of U.S. dollars per day.

“By reinventing the reverse osmosis process, our CCD solutions attain unprecedented high water recovery rates to reduce the high costs associated with zero liquid discharge operation,” said Nadav Efraty, Desalitech CEO. “CCD is ideal for any industrial process that creates a wastewater stream, and we are excited that it will help India’s fastest growing companies reduce water treatment costs and environmental impacts.”