Industrial Waste Treatment
Since 1990, CEL chemists and chemical engineers have worked to support federal facilities in meeting their federal, state and local regulatory compliance requirements defined under the industrial pretreatment provisions of the US Clean Water Act (Title 40 CFR Part 403).
CEL recently completed a four-year study supported by the US Air Force Small Business Innovative Research program to develop, demonstrate and deploy a new industrial waste treatment technology that effectively treats commingled metal finishing and electroplating wastes. The historical challenge in successfully managing these wastes has been the presence of chelating (i.e., metal adsorbing) agents that render traditional methods of industrial waste treatment ineffective.
Using simple oxidation-reduction chemical principles, CEL chemists developed an innovative industrial treatment technology based on ferrous chloride chemistry. The new technology enabled the USAF to effectively treat the commingled industrial waste streams in the presence of strong chelating agents.
The new technology, which was approved for use at the Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Industrial Waste Treatment Plant by the Utah Division of Water Quality, has been operational for more than three (3) years. Process details are summarized by CEL technical personnel in the following publication:
- Bingham, B., Guzman, S. and M. McFarland (2022) “Ferrous Chloride Treatment of Chelating Compounds in Industrial Wastewaters” INFLUENTS Innovative and Alternate Treatment Technologies, Vol. 18, pp. 50-51