Editorial Magazine 2016/2
Zero discharge of waste liquids is nowadays a reality
ECOLOGY AND SAVING:
ETHICAL DUTY AND POSSIBILITY OF HUGE ECONOMICAL SAVINGS
During the last 20th Technical Seminar on Innovative Technologies held in Modena on March 11th and organized by our Editorial House Interall, it has been disclosed and proposed to the International market a revolutionary technology for complete recycling of waste water coming from anodizing and powder coatings plants.
This means that in future it will be possible to recover 95% of the water used for rinsing (and for medium plants we talk of 10-20-30 thousand liters per hour!) and to get zero liquid discharge: this means big saving and no risk of polluting the environment, all at affordable operational and investment cost.
The innovative patented system is a “revolution” compared to conventional physical chemical systems and has been particularly designed for the treatment of liquid wastes derived from anodizing plants and powder coating pretreatment.
In the past, it was possible to partially or totally recycle the wastes in aluminium finishing plants, but it was necessary to use expensive equipment like evaporators, expensive as concerns capital investment and running costs.
Nowadays it is possible to reach zero liquid discharge thanks to a new method that uses active complex chemicals able to eliminate the ions in the waste water and to form a sludge which is more compact than usual (sludge reduction in volume up to 50%) and creating a non-toxic kind of sludge.
There are plants in Europe that already operate at an industrial level with this innovative system and we think that the Zero Discharge Chemical Method will be, in the coming years, one of the most important “technical revolutions” in the aluminium finishing industries and, due to the possibility of cost reduction and the ecological impact on the environment (low or almost zero water consumption and low or even zero discharge), the new technology will make the aluminium finishing companies more competitive and “green”, giving new opportunities and strength to our industries.
This plant can be integrated with a new method aimed to reduction of sludge produced.
This technology has been developed with the aim to increase the “dry part” in the sludge produced as a waste in aluminium anodizing lines; it allows to obtain a “dry part” equal to 40-45% of the total aluminium hydroxide sludge, instead of the usual 20-25% achieved in the traditional processes.; the environmental and economic advantages of the sludge reduction technology are evident, since the volume of sludge considered as an “industrial waste” is actually halved, and the number of trucks used to transport this volume of sludge is also halved.
I really think that the described technologies can be considered the “invention of the century” and every industry should consider now to start to save water, save the earth from pollution and save money.
Note: we invite our readers to ask for more information about the presentations of the 20th Technical Seminar on Innovative Technologies in Aluminium Finishing, March 11th 2016. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Truly yours,
Walter Dalla Barba,
Editor and Chairman of the 10th Aluminium Two Thousand Congress, Verona 2017
