How is water recovered in beverage industry?
Although each soft drink factory bottles different products and the water required may come from various sources (surface, well, or mains), there are a number of common methods in its manufacturing lines that can be used to generalise a basic scheme corresponding to the usage of water of varying quality depending on the application (e.g. washing, services or processing).
The various bottling businesses have their own processes and even mark the water treatment lines to follow in order to homogenise the quality of their goods and meet the standards set forth by the drinking water regulation. It is common practise to use a so-called multi-barrier therapy, which involves purification in phases.
Effluent Treatment Plants
The capacity of a Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) is proportional to the flow rate; however, the energy consumption as well as the amount of biological oxidation ponds and sludge generation are mostly determined by the organic load (COD).
Building an effluent treatment plant (ETP) for beverage processing businesses is the simplest way to avoid water contamination. Its main purpose is to develop a product that may be safely discharged into a watercourse or sewer while remaining below the recommended discharge limits. After treatment, these effluents can be re-used to reduce waste.
Advantages of effluent treatment plants
1. Efficient and effective
2. Easy to use
3. Increased legal compliance
4. Improved industrial image
5. Self-sustaining technology
Water purification stages just to recover water in beverage industry
1-Pre- treatment: Pre-treatment is the first phase, which involves removing bulk solids and pollutants. It usually begins with a skimming system (with bars of various lengths), sand removal, and, if necessary, the removal of floating particles. Following that, a NaOCl-type oxidising agent is dispensed, followed by physico-chemical treatment, which includes coagulating, flocculating, and decanting the suspended contaminants.
Sludge is a mass of separated materials with a concentration on the order of 1% in decantation and over 3% in flotation; hence, it is necessary to minimise the volume of this sludge in order to send it to landfill. This sludge is normally thickened first in a thickener; however, sludge concentrations of 5-8 % are difficult to exceed in this equipment.
Centrifugation (Centrifugal Decanters) or mechanical compression technologies (band filters or press filters) are used to dehydrate. Specific flocculants or lime are generally used to enhance the drying process. Because the water drained after concentrating the sludge is contaminated and difficult to use, it is transported to the general plant's effluent treatment. The resulting sludge has a dryness of around 30% and is disposed away in a landfill.
In the soft drink industry, pre-treated water is used for two purposes: services water and process water. Boilers, labellers, washing machines, CIP, industrial cold, cooling circuits, and a variety of other uses all need services water. To avoid fouling issues, water must be descaled using cation exchangers that have been regenerated with NaCl. The trash generated is plentiful and highly salinized.
2-Post Treatment:The excess oxidant (typically Cl2) in treated water must be eliminated before it can be used in manufacturing. There may, however, be residues such as polymer residues, ion exchange resin monomers, or other types of micro pollutants that were not separated by the semipermeable membrane treatment.
In this regard, activated carbon performs a crucial function, since it can catalyse Cl2 and adsorb the micro-particles. However, due to the adsorption activity of activated carbon on organic matter, there are excellent sites for biological contamination in the lower sections of the columns that house the activated carbon: for example, those with a high surface area, absence of oxidants, and a possible abundance of nutrients.
As a result, the activated carbon bed must be steam sterilised or treated with NaOH solution on a regular basis. The volume of rinse water used in these regeneration processes is significant.