Combatting Heavy Metals in Wastewater

About the Project:

A metal plating company uses rust preventative in a cleaning bath resulting in a wastewater that contains suspended solids of 10-20 parts-per-million (ppm) oil, heavy metals, calcium and magnesium.  The treatment system runs at 36 gallons per minute (gpm) and consists of a sand filter, bag filters, and ion exchange resin tank with a mixed bed resin, and an reverse osmosis (RO) system.  The plating company’s system was not cost efficient and required weekly maintenance.  Every day the company spent $60 on bag filters.  The resin had to be regenerated every week and both the resin tanks and RO membranes had to be cleaned every week.

To make the system more efficient, the sand in the sand filter was replaced with HS-200.  This replacement resulted in decreased oil and heavy metals content and is now less than 1 ppm. They are saving $50 per day on bags. Cleanup of the RO membranes and ion exchange tanks plus regeneration or resins is now done every two to three weeks. They reduced the cleanup and regeneration costs by one half to one third. With the cost up to $10/cubic foot of resin for regeneration and all the disruptions associated with it, the use of HS-200 for water cleanup is extremely beneficial.

Industry Type: Metal Plating Plant, Wastewater

Pollutants: Heavy Metals, Oil, Calcium, Magnesium

Media Used: HS-200