3 Ways to Implement Flow Segregation
The process of segregating flows for efficient, point-source treatment of wastewater can yield significant benefits for your facility, including cost savings, energy reductions, and decreased greenhouse gas emissions. Though it may seem daunting, implementing this process into your operations is easier than you might think—you may already be doing it!?
This series of blogs will help you maximize the benefits of flow segregation and build a compelling business case for its implementation in your production facility. We’ll start by discussing how to easily implement flow segregation. If you’d like more background on the topic and a high-level overview of segregating flows, check out this blog, which serves as a great introduction to flow segregation.?
Now, let’s dive in to how you can implement flow segregation based on your facility’s current setup and manufacturing processes, allowing you to work smarter, not harder, to reap its benefits. The concept is to capture and maintain separation of process water discharge so that it can be treated at, or near, where it is generated. This enables wastewater treatment equipment to address smaller, predictable?volumes and concentrations instead of large volumes with variable concentrations. There are three simple ways to do this depending on your current manufacturing processes.?
Flow Segregation by Location?
The first option to implement flow segregation is locating the areas in production that have the highest concentration of pollutants in the process water. ?Based on your facility’s functionality, different wastewater flows may be generated at different parts of your production line. Identifying where these flows are generated and setting up collection tanks, basins or isolated piping at those locations is the simplest way to capture and segregate from the centralized flow collection or sump pit in the facility.?
For example, a beverage bottling facility may have separate production areas: a mixing and blending zone where wastewater is generated by cleaning the mixing tanks between batches, a bottling area where wastewater is produced from cleaning the bottles, and a crusher where wastewater is generated from the disposal of expired products.?
Instead of allowing all of these flows to combine in one wastewater collection tank, create diversion points or isolated collection areas at each location where the wastewater can be segregated and moved to specialized treatment before combining with the full flow. This gives the facility more predictability over wastewater treatment of the segregated streams than the full flow, which improves the efficiency of all downstream processes.?
Of course, isolating process water at the exact point of generation may not be practical. There are operational manufacturing facilities that are, let’s say, vintage. In older facilities it may be difficult to isolate at the point of wastewater generation or trace underground plumbing lines; and flows may only be traced to a single sump. ?
In these cases, it is still possible to divert streams based on pollutant concentrations by adding inline sensors to measure BRIX (sugar) or chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the collection sump. These measurements happen in real time and logic controls can be integrated to trigger a sump pump transfer of wastewater to an independent collection tank outside of the facility when BRIX or COD readings exceed a given threshold (e.g. COD > 1,500 mg/L). This is a relatively simple and inexpensive method of segregating high pollutant waste streams for pretreatment.?
Benefits of Flow Segregation by Location:?
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Flow Segregation by Timing?
A second method you could consider to implement flow segregation at your facility is based on production and cleaning cycling timing. Based on your current manufacturing processes, you may be generating different concentrations of pollutants in the water at specific and predictable times the day. By collecting these flows at the time of generation, and isolating them for low-cost pretreatment when they occur instead of waiting for the full volume to accumulate, you can segregate the streams and treat smaller volumes more effectively. This can be achieved by integrating automation to divert the flow to separate wastewater collection tanks based on production or cleaning cycle timing.?
An example of this would be a dairy processing facility that produces a variety of products including milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter. The facility operates in batch processes for each product, with clean in place (CIP) and sanitizing cycles occurring between batches to ensure hygiene and quality standards.?
Collecting the wastewater that occurs during the dairy processing and CIP rinses separately allows the facility to effectively manage and treat wastewater streams that vary in composition throughout the day. Collecting and treating wastewater based on timing allows for the continuous operation of production and a logic-controlled method linked to internal SCADA processes that will automatically divert process flows to optimized treatment methods.?
Benefits of Flow Segregation Based on Timing?
Uncover the third, and most cost-efficient way to implement flow segregation at: