Saving water: full water recycling for a cosmetics manufacturer

Access to clean water is a basic requirement for efficient production. However, in Brazil, many regions suffer from acute water shortages. Appropriate water technology ensures that the available water is used sustainably.

• Objective

  Objective

  In order to adapt production to local conditions, we analysed all the water and wastewater flows at the customer's production site in Brazil. We answered the following questions:

  • What wastewater streams are generated?
  • Do they contain resources that can be cost-effectively recycled?
  • Can the wastewater streams be used for energy production (e.g. biogas production or heat recovery)?
  • What water qualitiy grades are required at the site (e.g. for irrigation, cleaning or reuse in production)?
• Solution

  Solution

  A water and wastewater register was created for the entire factory. Two main wastewater streams were identified:

  1. Predominantly inorganically contaminated wastewater from supply circuits: backwash water, reclaimed water from the water softening plant, and purge water from the cooling tower and boiler.
  2. Predominantly organically contaminated wastewater from manufacturing cleaning processes.

  A treatment concept was developed based on laboratory and pilot-scale tests. The organically contaminated wastewater is treated with the Biomar® OMB membrane biological process. The outflow from the biological treatment stage undergoes a secondary treatment, with submerged membranes to further improve the quality of the treated wastewater.

  Dissolved and undissolved salts are pre-filtered from the inorganic wastewater using a multimedia filter and separated in a downstream Envopur® reverse osmosis process. The resulting concentrates are evaporated.

  The plant technology was pre-assembled and tested in Germany in a compact EnviModul design and then installed ready for connection on site in Brazil.
• Result

  Result

  A smart concept and first-class plant solution enable water to be used in an energy-efficient and sustainable way. And it is economically vialble even with small amounts of wastewater.

  • 90% wastewater recycling for re-use in production
  • Modular plant concept for water recycling at performance of 1–100 m³/h
  • Production site secured despite water shortage
  • Quality assurance through wastewater technology preassembled and tested in Germany
  • Modular system that is easily extended or adapted to changes in conditions.