No business wants the word "toxic" associated with its operations. The world has grown very weary (and wary) of companies that aren't environmentally responsible. So while toxic wastewater as a byproduct of mining, oil refining, or other industrial processes isn't new, the impetus to treat these streams is steadily rising.

Onshore crude oil production has increased in the United States over the past few years. Oil producers, specifically the North Dakota Pipeline Authority and the Bakken Shale field producers are transporting crude oil by rail and train to both the East and West Coast oil refineries. While rail tends to be one of the safer and more efficient ways of transporting crude oil, there is still a risk of a spill. Oil spills are threats to both ground and surface waters, which can ultimately impact drinking water.

Large, distributed water networks are not well-suited for conventional water monitoring processes which rely on manual sampling and lab testing. In particular, this midstream oil and gas company had a need to detect Iron, Selenium, and other heavy metals at a precise level comparable to a lab. In addition, it wasn’t feasible to manually test the entire water system at the requisite frequency. Finally, instrument reliability and unplanned downtime were an issue.

For an open-pit taconite mining operation in Minnesota, high pH groundwater required round-the-clock pumping to comply with discharge permit limits. After management installed a control system to neutralize the pH, the treated water leaving the site now meets permit limits. Read this case study to learn more about the installed system and results.

This application profile focuses on two test sites with different treatment requirements and describes how Aqua-Aerobic Systems’ OptiFiber® pile cloth media filtration was used at both sites to address the removal of harmful constituents from refinery wastewater.

Keeping pace with changing industrial wastewater treatment demands can raise multiple issues of oxygen demand, capital cost, and operating expense, often without the flexibility of taking basins out of service to upgrade to new levels of performance. Fortunately, there are alternatives for delivering more oxygen to treat more water.

Food and beverage wastewater treatment demands often fluctuate more drastically than municipal wastewater applications in terms of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) relating to the foods being processed or to cyclical activity. Modular, self-contained systems offer practical, cost-effective solutions to help food processors keep pace with such variability — as a total or supplemental solution. Here’s how.

A global beverage company produces, markets, sells and distributes a variety of beverages including beer, malt, soft drinks, fruit juices and mineral water. The brewery has utilized several types of SITRANS F flowmeters from Siemens to regulate all aspects of the brewing process for more than a decade, including SITRANS F C Coriolis meters to monitor the sugar concentration in wort prior to fermentation.

For distilleries, high levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), nitrogen, total dissolved solids (TDS), and total suspended solids (TSS) put extra pressure on optimal biological treatment requirements. Here are some techniques that can help distillers put a little extra money in the bank while meeting the challenges of environmental discharge requirements.

The production of food and beverage products in the U.S. accounts for around one-third of the total freshwater use of the country. While it is unimaginable to consume so much water just for yourself, industrial and agricultural applications are on a scale of their own. At the rate we are going, water demand is not going to slow down anytime soon. Water supply, on the other hand, is going in the other direction. 

We’ve almost made it to the midway point of the 84^th Session of the Texas Legislature. As many already know, the Texas Legislature only meets from January to May every other year, so a lot has to get done in these few months.

The power sector looks to zero liquid discharge and taps municipal reclaimed water as a water reuse strategy.

The client was in need of both a raw water and wastewater treatment system for its new 1,100-megawatt (MW) natural gasfired combined cycle power station that was being built to replace an existing 400-MW coal-fired plant that had been decommissioned previously. Veolia Water Technologies was contacted to engineer, procure and supply a 6,000 gallons per minute (GPM) raw water treatment system and a 1,200-GPM wastewater treatment system.

GE Water & Process Technologies and the World Resources Institute (WRI), an independent research organization studying sustainability, jointly produced a white paper called “Water-Energy Nexus: Business Risks and Rewards.” The paper hones in on the shared interest of the two groups, namely the supply of freshwater counted on by the energy industry, which in turn fuels water treatment operations, a relationship that’s known as the “water-energy nexus.”

Top-performing coal-fired power plant finds that SolarBee^® solar-powered mixers combat blue-green algae in 500-acre reservoir without the need for chemicals or mechanical aeration.

Because recent advances in plastic materials and processing have led to a new generation of plastic piping systems to handle challenging water and chemical environments, it is important to understand why some older piping choices might no longer be the best bet. Here are some key reasons to consider new plastic-piping choices for municipal and industrial water/wastewater applications in a whole new light.

As the agriculture economy boomed, needs for freshwater demanded by irrigation, tourism and the local community also grew in Campo de Dalías, a coastal region on the Mediterranean Sea. As a result, the region faced overexploitation of groundwater aquifers. Read the full case study to learn how Toray was selected as the sole membrane supplier for a two-pass system for a newly implemented national desalination plan.

A large citrus grove in central Florida recently incorporated FreeWave Technologies’ industrial wireless M2M communications solutions in a study of autonomous tractors utilized for mowing operations.

When we think of high tech, we typically think about electricity. Fair enough. But power up a deeper search and you'll see how integral water is to the high-tech world.

No business wants the word "toxic" associated with its operations. The world has grown very weary (and wary) of companies that aren't environmentally responsible. So while toxic wastewater as a byproduct of mining, oil refining, or other industrial processes isn't new, the impetus to treat these streams is steadily rising.

An automotive parts manufacturer producing millions of parts per year was seeking to remove cutting fluid/oil and suspended solids from water used in its parts-washing process to enable water recycling and reuse in the parts washer. Successful lab testing and trials enabled the system integrator to win the project and install full-scale systems utilizing PPG’s UF membrane element. Read the full case study to learn more.

Ladysmith, BC is home to nearly 8,000 people on the western coast of Canada and has a history of coal mining, forestry, rail and marine industry. An existing wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) provided treatment to the town’s wastewater before discharging to the Ladysmith Harbor. The plant removed primarily particulate matter and suspended solids from the wastewater to be driven to a composting site. The existing system met some needs, but would not be able to achieve the future BOD and TSS effluent limits proposed to the town.

Keeping pace with changing industrial wastewater treatment demands can raise multiple issues of oxygen demand, capital cost, and operating expense, often without the flexibility of taking basins out of service to upgrade to new levels of performance. Fortunately, there are alternatives for delivering more oxygen to treat more water.

The use of pesticides to control unwanted pests dates back hundreds of years.