Membrane products are well known for producing potable water in municipal plants and seawater desalination. However, what is not known by many industrial customers is the possibilities of using membrane technology in industrial applications to reduce resource usage and waste. By fully utilizing membrane products industrials can improve process quality, remove contamination, and command significant cost savings.
Membranes achieve separations without a phase change. The absence of applying heat or chemicals to a given application can be advantageous to many processes in an industrial setting. The ability to remove water from a process stream or effluent has been shown to be an effective way of concentrating valuable components of an aqueous stream.
In an industrial setting, sometimes the water doesn’t meet the requirement. In these cases, membranes can be used to improve the quality of incoming water so that the process can be run at the required quality setting.
Another compelling use case is when the discharge from a process is too great, and a reduction step is needed. Membranes can facilitate this. In other cases, a process solution requiring close monitoring of its concentration can use membranes to provide efficient means of adjusting the concentration.
Benefits of Membrane Technology
The use of membranes can be advantageous for many applications. Key benefits include:
Resource Efficiency: Recycling water in a process stream, or effluent, effectively concentrates valuable components and recovers water.
Water Quality Improvement: Membranes can improve the quality of water used in industrial processes, ensuring operations meet required standards.
Wastewater Reduction: The reduction of discharge from industrial discharge, or removal of specific hazardous stream, aiding in environmental compliance.
Cost Savings: Water use, treatment and waste reduction can lead to major cost reduction
This is the first blog in a series of blogs where we will discuss applications of membrane technology in industries.
The range of applications that currently take advantage of membranes is impressive and continues to grow, including metal finishing industries, aerospace, semiconductors, among others.
Today we will focus on the use of membranes in Metal Finishing and Aerospace Parts Processing.
Membrane processes employ a barrier layer that allows water to permeate or pass through while rejecting other components such as various chemistries used in the processing. The clean water is then recycled back to the process at the desired customer water quality and the rejected components – can be collected for addition, reuse or offsite recycling.
Exergy delivers water recovery rates typically between 90 – 95%.
Plant-wide closed-loop system proves to be cost effective
Exergy worked with a leading industrial parts anodizing facility to implement a plant-wide closed-loop membrane system. The facility was struggling with high water usage, and wastewater treatment & disposal costs. By integrating a membrane system, the customer was able to achieve a 90% water recovery rate, significantly reducing both operational costs and environmental impact. The concentrated waste streams were further processed to reclaim valuable chemicals, resulting in additional cost savings and improved sustainability.
Exergy collected and analyzed every rinse wastewater stream at the site to prepare a closed-loop recycling strategy for implementation.
The rinses were divided into two wastewater streams. The stream with low TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) was directed to an Exergy ARO™ system. The second waste stream containing Aluminum, Silica, and Zinc was directed into a pre-treatment system and then led into a second ARO™ system. The permeates of the ARO systems were recycled to rinses for the surface finishing operations.
With these treatment systems, Exergy reduced water consumption from 120,000 Gallons Per Day (GPD) to 10,000 GPD. The customer realized cost savings of $160,000 per year on water costs, waste treatment, and chemicals.
The industrial application of membrane technology offers significant benefits, including resource conservation, cost savings, and environmental protection. As technology continues to evolve, its role in various industries will likely expand, contributing to more sustainable and efficient processes.
You can read more about the case study here.
