Since its creation in 1985, our Customer has been the French leader and one of Europe’s leading independent distributors of flower, vegetable and nursery seeds and seedlings, aimed at professional market gardeners, horticulturalists and nurserymen, as well as local authorities. It offers a unique variety of products distributed on the European market. This activity generates effluents containing soil and root residues. To comply with its environmental policy, our Customer wishes to be able to either discharge the treated water or recycle it for reuse as washing water. For this reason, the company called on the services of NISKAE.
For the time being, our Customer’s wastewater is stored before being removed for disposal by an external service provider. Disposal costs are estimated at €100 per m3, for a quantity of around 3,000 liters of effluent per day. Operators spend around an hour a day pumping and storing wastewater. NISKAE’s mission is to find a solution that is both environmentally-friendly and efficient, and that also offers significant financial savings.
The first step is to have a sample of the wastewater analyzed by our laboratory teams. In this way, the coagulant-flocculant complex best suited to the water’s problems can be implemented.
Our Customer’s water contained high concentrations of iron and copper. Iron concentrations were 0.39mg/L and copper 0.20mg/L. Zinc was also present. Concentrations of other metals were negligible. At the same time, the pH of the sample supplied by the customer was 10, synonymous with a rather basic effluent. The aim of the treatment proposed by NISKAE was to create a coagulant-flocculant complex capable of reducing these heavy metal levels. After several sampling campaigns, the solution developed is capable of reducing Iron and Copper concentrations to below 0.01mg/L. Zinc levels were stabilized at 0.03mg/L. In addition, the pH of the solution was lowered to 9.88.
The sample, which was initially brown, became heterogeneous, with a clear, transparent, slightly yellow liquid and sedimented, easily dehydratable treatment sludge.
After developing the flocculant mono-reagent, specially adapted to the specific needs of our Customer’s effluents, NISKAE was able to offer a physico-chemical process that remains simple to use and maintain, with relatively short reaction times and low reagent dosages. The effectiveness of the NISKAE flocculent reagent also makes it possible to recycle wastewater. This not only represents economic progress, as it reduces water management costs, but also, and above all, environmental progress for a water-consuming industry.