Wastewater Pre-Treatment Design for a Decorative Paint Facility
Wastewater Pre-Treatment System Design for an Aerospace company to comply with city regulations
A leading aerospace company developed a new Decorative Paint Facility that required substantial wastewater treatment to comply with city regulations.
The facility was to produce 430,000 gallons per month of wastewater that needed to be treated to remove all controlled substances in the wastewater to less than or equal to 50% of permitted limits. Wastewater samples were not available for the facility and a wide range of wastewater compositions were expected, making designing the wastewater pre-treatment (WWPT) system challenging.
How We Did It
Using surrogate wastewater samples, Harris Group was able to generate various test recipes to determine design limits for appropriate wastewater treatment. Based on these results, we designed a flexible WWPT system capable of treating a wide range of chemical reagents with ample redundancy built into the design.
The Decorative Paint Facility located in Charleston, South Carolina consisted of two paint hangar bays expected to produce a total of 430,000 gallons of wastewater per month. Harris Group was asked to design a WWPT system that would properly accommodate and treat the wastewater volume to less than or equal to 50% of permitted limits. Since there were no wastewater samples available for the facility, Harris Group used surrogate wastewater samples for the expected compositions to be generated.
A large variety of treatment recipes were tested to ensure the WWPT design would accommodate a wide range of compositions expected to be produced. Based on the test results, we designed a WWPT system consisting of three agitated treatment tanks at 30 feet high by 14 feet in diameter with a capacity of 30,000 gallons each. Piping systems were arranged to allow wastewater to be pumped from either or both paint hangar bays to the treatment tanks. The WWPT was designed to be operated in batch mode to be available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. This overall design allowed for increased flexibility in treatment options and the opportunity to easily adapt for future expansion.
A large variety of treatment receipes were tested to ensure the WWPT design would accomodate a wide rage of compositions.
The unique ability and experience of the Harris Group process engineering group allowed us to take on the challenge of developing a WWPT system with limited information.
Harris Group worked closely with the client and their process owners at other treatment facilities to improve the existing WWPT processes using representative wastewater samples.
Final detailed design included the finalization of tank sizing and piping orientation along with coordination of laboratory confirmation of the treatment process to ensure the best wastewater treatment solution was provided.
