Twice the capacity, same footprint using SUEZ’s ZeeWeed* 500D MBR technology

An Indian consumer goods company, which produces high quality food and beverage products while maintaining a low environmental footprint, understood that water was an important resource impacting their business. Faced with the challenge of increasing capacity at its plant, this F&B company decided to find an option that would help them reduce freshwater consumption while increasing production volumes. The company needed a solution that would enable them to double wastewater treatment capacity and improve effluent quality without expanding the existing footprint of the treatment plant.

Unable to expand the plant’s footprint, the firm required a compact technology solution to retrofit the existing wastewater plant. SUEZ proposed its ZeeWeed* 500D Membrane bioreactor (MBR) solution.

ZeeWeed 500D ultrafiltration membranes have a nominal pore size of 0.04 microns, which provides a physical barrier to solids, bacteria and viruses, retaining them in the process tank. The ZeeWeed membrane system can handle significant variances in feed water and can operate in high MLSS concentrations of up to 12,000 mg/L.
The ZeeWeed MBR system can operate with the membranes directly in series with the bioreactor tank. This drastically reduces the required plant footprint by eliminating the need for secondary clarifiers. The membranes are designed to operate with minimal air scouring through the use of a patented cyclic aeration approach and the membrane fibres are manufactured from PVDF, which is highly resistant to cleaning chemicals. The MBR retrofit enhances the plant’s capacity to handle its growing wastewater treatment needs and produce high quality water that can be sent directly to the cooling system.

 

Table 1: Project Summary

End User:	Dairy and FMCG Company
Location:	Northern India
Commissioned:	2010
Application:	Wastewater Reuse
Feed water Source:	Effluent water
Feed water quality:	COD-1300 mg/L; BOD- 600 mg/L
Product Quality:	COD<50 mg/l;=""><5>
Capacity:	1200 m3/day
Technology:	ZeeWeed 500D

The ZeeWeed 500D retrofit was able to double the capacity within the existing infrastructure. SUEZ's ZeeWeed membrane technology has been proven for more than two decades for wastewater treatment and water reuse. SUEZ has the world's largest installed base of MBR systems that use ZeeWeed membranes to produce the highest quality of water for reuse.

Thanks to the successful upgrade to ZeeWeed, this F&B company decided to also use SUEZ’s ReNEW* standard reverse osmosis (RO) skid for their three RO concentrates. The ReNEW has been designed at a special low-flux for wastewater reuse applications (i.e., after MBR or tertiary UF treatment).

To learn more, please contact your local SUEZ representative, or visit us at our website.