A New York manufacturer of pharmaceutical products such as cream and ointments is required to clean is equipment daily with soap and hot water. The wastewater is collected in a grease trap separator; from which passes into a sump pit where a surface oil skimmer removes any floating oil and grease. This wastewater then passes through an oil magnet filter for discharge into the New York City sewer.

The New York City regulations stipulate a discharge level of no more than 50 PPM petroleum hydrocarbons, a level frequently exceeded by the manufacturer. The emulsified oil phase consists of white petroleum, stearic acid, fatty adid stearates, fatty alcohols, mineral oils, oxyethylene ethers and stearates. The average conentraion of emulsified oil is 5 – 400 PPM. Average daily discharge is 3110 gallons. Two trains of filtration vessels were set up in parallel. The lead unit in each contains 350 lbs of HS-200, followed by 190 lbs of a blend of a bituinous and cocnut shell sctivated carbon.

Some 250,000 gaollons of wastewater have already passed through the above-mentioned system, and no hydrocarbons have been detected in the test results.

The best part is that the company achieved these superb results by installing an $8000 filtration system using organically modified media and activated carbon. This was an 80% savings over the $40,000 ultrafiltration system they had initially considered, thus lowering the company’s capitalization costs by at least $32,00 in one stroke. The second best part is that the change out of the filtration media is expected to be once a year.