Specializing in metal surface treatment, our Customer implements a wide variety of processes, including electrolytic plating, copper plating, nickel plating, tin plating and pickling of metals, and electrolytic passivation on stainless steel. All these processes require cleaning phases, generating large quantities of wash water that our customer would like to recycle with a view to zero waste. The customer contacted us to set up a treatment system for its process water, including surface treatment bath drain water, using a coagulant-flocculant product specifically adapted to its needs, and thus improve its wastewater management.
At present, our customer rents a vacuum evaporator to treat its degreasing water, which contains both chemicals and heavy metals. He turned to us for help in finding a more sustainable and easier-to-use physico-chemical solution, which would enable him to recycle the one cubic metre of water he discharges per day on average.
Analyzing a wastewater sample provided by our customer, we first noticed an extremely low pH of 1.83, making it a very acidic effluent. In addition, the concentration of the main metal, nickel, was extremely high at 150.00 mg/L. Thanks to these observations, we were able to set up a specifically adapted powder treatment, combining an increase in pH and subsequent neutralization, with a reduction in nickel, zinc and copper concentrations. Our coagulant-flocculant mono-reagent reduced nickel levels to 0.13 mg/L and set the pH at 8.69. Visually, we’ve gone from a slightly yellow solution to a clearer, cleaner one. What’s more, this tailor-made formulation of the powdered product generates a quantity of sludge to be evacuated equivalent to a few percent of the water volume. The sludge obtained is easily filtered and dehydrated, confirming the advantages of our reagent.
Our customer’s needs were met thanks to the development of a tailor-made coagulant. In fact, we were able to offer our customer a physico-chemical process that is both efficient in terms of reaction time and simpler than the vacuum evaporation process currently in use. From an economic point of view, costs have been reduced by lowering our customer’s energy consumption, but also by eliminating storage costs. The efficiency of our flocculant reagent means that water from the metal surface treatment process can be recycled. From an environmental point of view, our work contributes to strengthening our customer’s sustainable development policy.
