A water reuse systems has been successfully installed and started up at Alcoa Howmet in Wichita Falls, Texas. This system will receive wastewater from ProChem’s existing wastewater treatment system to recycle the water back into the Alcoa plant. It will also receive water from a first-of-its-kind Natural Engineered Wastewater Treatment System (NEWT). Alcoa’s NEWT system collects sanitary water from the facility, purifies it using vegetation, and then will feed that water to the ProChem water reuse system for recycling and recirculation into the manufacturing process. In other words, the water reuse system will recycle both manufacturing process water and (pretreated) facility sanitary water for reuse in the manufacturing process. With these systems in place, the facility will reduce their water consumption by 68%; and the recycled water quality is better than the city water previously used by the facility.

The water reuse system is capable of accepting 75 gpm of wastewater and uses high pressure reverse osmosis (IHPRO) technology. It can supply 120 gpm of purified water to the facility. It is automated and features web-based remote monitoring.

The IHPRO unit features 8 membrane housings with 32 high-pressure industrial water reuse membranes constructed with a high surface area and high salt rejection rate. Ultraviolet light is used to control microbiological growth in the reuse water prior to distribution to the manufacturing process. In addition, a portion of the UV treated reuse water will be recirculated back to the IHPRO permeate water storage tanks to provide control of microbiological growth in the storage tank and distribution systems. Deionization columns and media are used to further purify the recycled water prior to use for higher purity needs in the plant.
The concentrate from the IHPRO unit is fed back to the IHPRO feed tanks until the concentrate meets a high conductivity level. At that point, the concentrate can be discharged to the sewer or to the wastewater treatment system for treatment.

A clean-in-place system (CIP) is included for to clean the IHPRO membranes on-site. This CIP includes a conical bottom HDPE tank, chemical feed station, and control valves and piping. Wastewater from the CIP system is directed to the wastewater treatment system for treatment (and then recycling).

For more information you can visit : http://www.prochemwater.com/