ASSIGNMENT- 5

ANS 1:
Equalization:
 It is the method of retaining waste in a basin so that the effluent discharge
is fairly uniform in its characteristics.
 The main objective is to minimize or control fluctuations in waste water
characteristics in order to provide better condition for subsequent
treatment.
 The purpose of equalization is to provide adequate damping of organic
fluctuations inorder to prevent shock loading of biological treatment.
 It also provide adequate pH control or to minimize the chemical
requirements for neutralization.
 It helps in providing continuous feed to biological systems once a period,
when the manufacturing plant is not operating.
 It helps in preventing high concentration of toxic materials from entering
the biological treatment plant.
 There are 2 types of equalization:
o Inline equalization: In the inline equalization all of the flow passes
through the equalization basin. This arrangement can be made to
achieve a considerable amount of constituent concentration and flow
rate damping.
o Offline equalization: In the offline arrangement only the flow above
some predetermined flow limit is diverted into the equalization tank
although the pumping requirement are minimized in this
arrangement. The amount of constituent concentration clamming is
considerably removed. Offline equalization is sometimes used to
capture first flush from combined collection.
Neutralization:
  The excessively acidic or alkaline waste should not be discharged without
treatment into a receiving stream, sewer, and effluent treatment plant or on
land.
 There are many acceptable methods for neutralization of acidic or alkaline
waste water and they are as follows:
o Neutralization of acidic waste:
o Mixing the waste by the waste from other industry.
o Passing acidic waste through beds of lime stone.
o Mixing acidic waste with lime slurry
o Adding proper proportion of caustic soda or soda ash.

 Neutralization of alkaline waste:

o Use of waste boiler flue gas
o CO2 treatment for alkaline waste
o Producing CO2 in alkaline waste
o H2SO4 treatment. • Acid waste neutralization in industrial process.

ANS 2:

Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is the regulatory authority and mandates
the treated water quality for any STP in India. The discharge standards stipulated
in 2015 have been diluted making it easier for STP owners. The changed norms
are:
How does it impact us? / What it means to a STP owner?

1. He no longer need advanced membrane filtration equipment like Ultra-

Filtration. Any properly designed and operated STP can give you output to meet
the revised norms. This saves you on capital cost & operating cost.

2. He will not need multiple disinfection equipment like UV / Ozonation etc.

Proper chlorination will be sufficient to meet the Fecal Coliform standard of less
than 1000 in 100 ml sample.

3. If he is located outside state capital, the standard for Total Suspended solids is
lower at 100 Mg/L. This means there is no need for Pressure Sand Filter to reduce
suspended solids. This reduces the operation and maintenance by 50%. If the
plant is automatic, there is no need for a dedicated operator. This saves trouble of
getting trained manpower for STP operation along with huge cost.

ANS 3:

1.Sugar Industry

a) Sources of Wastewater:
There are various sources of wastewater generating in a sugar industry. The
quantity of the effluent depends on the size of the factory as depicted in Table 1.
The break-up of the effluent generated in the various units of a typical sugar plant
is shown in Table 2.

Centrifugation produces another type of wastewater called ‘Molasses’. Molasses is

an important raw material for distilleries.

(b) Characteristics of wastewater:

The effluent characteristics from a typical sugar plant are presented in Table 3.
(c) Treatment of Wastewater:

The system of treating wastewater is by Activated Sludge Process (ASP) from

various units of a sugar plant is shown in Fig. 3. The various units include Bar
Screen, Skimming Tank, Equalization Basin, Aeration Unit, Clarifier and Sludge
Drying Beds.
(d) Disposal :
The Indian Standards (IS: 2490, 1974; IS: 7968, 1976) require that the BOD and
COD of the treated effluent should be brought down to 30 and 250 mg/l for
disposal into inland waters.
The respective values for disposal on land should be less than 100 and 250 mg/l.
None of the treatment alternatives achieve this target. Hence, further treatment
or dilution before final disposal is essential.
Because of the large quantity of spent wash water and relatively high values of
BOD and COD in anaerobically treated effluent, it is almost impossible to meet the
dilution water requirements.
There are very few studies reported which attempt further reduction in BOD/COD
of anaerobically treated spent wash water. Flow diagram 15.2 shows distillery
waste treatment method.

2. Dairy Industry
(a) Sources of wastewater:

The liquid waste from a large dairy originates from the following sections or
plants: receiving stations, bottling plant, cheese plant, casein plant, condensed
milk plant, dried milk plant, and ice cream plant. The main sources of dairy
effluents are those arising from the following:

 Spills and leaks of products or by-products

 Residual milk or milk products in piping and equipment before cleaning
 Wash solutions from equipment and floors
 Condensate from evaporation processes
 Pressings and brines from cheese manufacture

Dairy plant operators may choose from a wide variety of methods for treating
dairy wastes from their plants. This may range from land application for small
plants to operation of biological waste-water treatment systems for larger plants.
Some dairy plants may pre-treat the effluents and discharge them to a municipal
waste-water treatment plant.

In addition to the wastes from all the above milk processing units, some amount
of uncontaminated cooling water comes as waste; these are very often re-
circulated.

(b) Characteristics of wastewater:

Dairy effluent contains soluble organics, suspended solids, trace organics. All these
components contribute largely towards their high biological oxygen demand
(BODS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Dairy wastes are white in colour and
usually slightly alkaline in nature and become acidic quite rapidly due to the
fermentation of milk sugar to lactic acid. The suspended matter content of milk
waste is considerable mainly due to fine curd found in cheese waste. The pollution
effect of dairy waste is attributed to the immediate and high oxygen demand.
Decomposition of casein leading to the formation of heavy black sludge’s and
strong butyric acid odors and characterize milk waste pollution. The characteristics
of a dairy effluent contain Temperature, Color, PH (6.5-8.0), DO, BOD, COD,
Dissolved solids, suspended solids, chlorides, sulphate, oil & grease. It depends
largely on the quantity of milk processed and type of product manufactured. The
waste water of dairy contains large quantities of milk constituents such as casein,
inorganic salts, besides detergents and sanitizers used for washing. It has high
sodium content from the use of caustic soda for cleaning. Typical Characteristics
of dairy industry wastewaters reported by various authors are given in table.

(c) Treatment:

Dairy manufacturing has a strong impact on the environment, producing large

volumes of wastewater with high organic and nutrient loading and extreme pH
variations. This requires the application of effective and cheap wastewater
treatment procedures which ensure fresh water preservation. There are various
dairy effluent treatment strategies as shown in following figure:
(d) Disposal:
Dairy plants discharging waste waters directly to streams, bays, rivers, creeks
and /or estuaries must have a permit for this discharge. Dairy plants that use non-
discharge systems such as land disposal will also need a permit. Permits for
discharge are usually obtained from the state government control agency.
Effluents from waste treatment systems must be sufficiently reduced in BOD and
biological nutrients (e.g., P, NH3) that discharge to surface waters does not
significantly affect aquatic life. Environmental regulatory agencies specify limits for
composition of effluents discharged to each type of stream or watershed. To
reduce the volume of dairy wastewater to be treated and reduce treatment costs,
careful attention must be given to minimizing losses of milk and milk products in
the dairy plant. With good product conservation and selection of an effective
waste treatment process, dairy plant operators should be able to operate
profitably and meet environmental requirements.

3. Pulp and Paper Industry

(a) Sources of wastewater:

The high volumes of water required, have resulted in the majority of the mills in
India being situated close to rivers where inexpensive water is readily available.
Inland where inexpensive water is less readily available, process water is also
derived from treated domestic waste waters. Waste-water disposal often occurs
directly to rivers or to the sea with or without prior biological treatment. Other
avenues of disposal include irrigation onto pasture land, or discharge to sewer
(attracting a local municipal discharge levy).

In the production of approximately 3 000 000 t/a of paper products the Industry
uses some 130 million m3 /n of water. The waste water produced is high both in
organic material (200 to 17 000 mg/C COD) and inorganic material (500 to 13 000
mg/f TDS). The variation in water intake and waste-water quality is dependent
upon the tree species or pulp material utilized, the efficiency of the mill in terms
of process control and operation, the paper product produced, and the degree o\
chemical recovery or wastewater treatment prior to discharge.

(b) Characteristics of wastewater:

1. Suspended Solids

The presence of suspended solids in mill waste waters is due to the fine bark
particles and silt from pretreatment, the overall retention on the paper machines,
which is affected by the use of retention aids and save-alls, and the loss of
fibre/filler in spillages or during wash-ups and grade changes.

2. Dissolved Solids

(i) Organic matter: Depending upon the pulping procedure and yield coefficient of
pulp from the wood, bagasse or waste paper, up to 60% of the raw material is
suspended or dissolved and becomes a potential organic pollutant load. The loss
of dissolved organic matter in mill waste waters also arises from non-retained wet-
end additives and materials dissolved from pulp or recycled broke and waste
paper. In practice the majority of this material is recovered for reuse. As measured
by the COD of the mixed waste water, the specific loss of dissolved organics
ranged from 4,4 - 80 kg/t. The strength of the waste water depends on the load
loss and the specific water intake and varies over an extremely wide range (200 -
20 000 mg/£ COD).

(ii) Inorganic matter: Total dissolved solids loads ranged from 2 - 183 kg/t of
product (Table 6). Pulp liquors containing discharges from the black liquor,
washing liquors, overflows and storage residue contribute to the hiiih TDS levels in
the form of salt cake, sodium, calcium, carbonates and sulphates.

(c) Treatment:

Treatment of water without reuse (open cycle)

In this case, the objective of treatment is to reduce the contamination in effluents

to such a degree that they can be discharged, thereby complying with legislative
requirements and avoiding any environmental impact.

The effluents to be treated tend to have high pH values and a high content of
organic matter, solids in suspension, organohalogenated compounds (AOX),
nitrogen, and phosphorus, amongst other contaminants.

A satisfactory treatment of such effluents would involve stages such as

homogenization and neutralization of the pH, coagulation/flocculation prior to
decantation, and, finally, elimination of the organic matter using a biological
process (anaerobic or aerobic) or by advanced oxidation (with ozone, Fenton, or
photo-Fenton). After these steps, the effluent can be discharged into the
environment.

Treatment using a zero-waste system (closed cycle)

The implementation of a zero-waste system is a much broader concept than

simply an effluent treatment technology. Indeed, this is an environmental
management system that aims to achieve the lowest environmental impact of the
process as a whole. Thus, the generation of liquid waste and consumption of
drinking water are minimized by reuse of the water recovered from the effluent.

In order to treat effluents to achieve a sufficient quality that allows the water
recovered to be reused, a more exhaustive treatment than in the previous case
must be designed. An initial homogenization and pH-neutralization step, followed
by decantation to sediment the solids in suspension with the largest particle sizes,
is required. Treatment then continues with advanced oxidation (preferably
ozonization) to destroy larger organic molecules that may be refractory to a
subsequent biological process, usually an anaerobic biological treatment, in which
the content of organic matter dissolved in the liquid is reduced while generating
biogas, followed by filtration of the digestion effluent, initially through a sand filter
and then using ultrafiltration membranes. A reverse osmosis process completes
the treatment. The permeate resulting upon reverse osmosis is of the quality
required for reuse in the paper manufacturing process, whereas the rejection flow
is treated using a vacuum evaporation process to reduce its volume as far as
possible. The water recovered by evaporation can also be reused, whereas the
concentrate, which has a minimum volume, must be managed as a waste. The
sludges generated in the anaerobic digestion process, together with the plant
residues, such as tree bark, sawdust, etc. generated during initial preparation of
the wood, are burnt in a furnace. Both the heat generated by the furnace and that
generated upon burning the biogas help to meet the energy requirements of the
vacuum evaporator.

Thus, most of the water used during the process is recovered, a minimum quantity
of waste that needs to be managed externally is generated, and major synergies
between different processes are achieved in energy terms, therefore, overall, this
is a highly sustainable environmental management system.

ANS 4:

EFFLUENTS STANDARDS IN INDIA:

ANS 5:

COMMON EFFLUENT TREATMENT PLANT (CETP)

The concept of effluent treatment, by means, of a collective effort, has assumed

reasonable gravity by being especially purposeful for cluster of small scale
industrial units. Common effluent treatment plant (CETP) not only helps the
industries in easier control of pollution, but also act as a step towards cleaner
environment and service to the society at large. Small scale industries, by their
very nature of job cannot benefit much from economies of scale and therefore the
burden of installing pollution- control equipment, falls heavy on them. Realizing
this practical problem, under the policy statement for abatement of pollution the
Govt. felt to extend the scheme for promoting combined facilities for treatment of
effluent and management of solid waste for clusters of small scale industrial units
and also to provide technical support to them. Accordingly, Ministry of
Environment & Forests, Govt. of India, had instructed various State Pollution
Control Boards, to examine the possibilities of establishing CETPs in various
Industrial estates in the respective states.

The concerted approach of joint or common effluent treatment provisions has

many advantages. Wastewater of individual industries often contain significant
concentration of pollutants; and to reduce them by individual treatment up to the
desired concentration, become techno-economically difficult. The combined
treatment provides a better and economical option because of the equalization
and neutralization taking place in the CETP.

Other important issues for the merit of common treatment include scarcity of
land at the industry's level and a comparatively easier availability of professional
and trained staff for the operation of CETP, which can otherwise be difficult, at the
individual industry level. For the regulatory authorities also, common treatment
facility offers a comparatively easier means of ensuring compliance of stipulated
norms. The handling and disposal of solid- waste also becomes increasingly easier
as the infrastructure is created in the project itself. The concept of common
treatment, based on feasibility, should be part of the new industrial estates as
essential component of infrastructure, In fact, the location of industries should
always be such that units with compatible nature of activity are located in a
cluster which inturn can facilitate in providing common treatment.