Waste water recycling and pre-treatment systems: An alternative to oil/water separators
- Air Force, Brooks AFB, TX (United States). Bioenvironmental Engineering Div.
The purpose of this paper is to offer a pollution prevention alternative to the use of oil/water separators, especially at wash racks where large amounts of water and surfactants are used that could cause discharges of oil into the storm or sanitary sewer system. A major reason for investigating an alternative to oil/water separators is their ineffectiveness when oil emulsifies in the waste water due to the addition of surfactants and solvents. This breakdown of oil in the water causes the effluent of the oil/water separator to be contaminated. Additionally, the sludge and sediment that collects at the bottom of the separator usually contains contaminants that may be considered hazardous waste. In most cases, heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium, and lead are typically found in oil/water separator sludge and sediment. This hazardous waste actually represents a significant cost and quantity of waste generation that the installation or facility could avoid through good pollution prevention practices. Some of those practices include eliminating surfactants and solvent disposal into the oil/water separator in the first place. When elimination of solvents and surfactants are not possible or practical, another alternative exists. That alternative is the implementation of a waste water recycling unit. A waste water recycling unit will remove contaminants from the waste water while leaving in the dissolved cleaning agent, thereby not only saving on water consumption by the process, there is also a savings in the usage of cleaning detergents. The use of a recycling unit at wash racks makes particularly good sense because oil/water separators are not very effective when cleaning agents are introduced into the separator. Also, the user will be able to virtually eliminate any effluent discharge into the storm or sanitary sewer system by using a recycling unit.
- OSTI ID:
- 679373
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-980632--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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