Sewage & Industrial Effluent Treatment Plants

What is Sewage & Industrial Effluent Treatment?

Overview
  • Waste water from kitchens and toilets is referred to as sewage and that from industrial operations is referred to as industrial effluent.
  • Discharge of sewage and industrial effluent into the environment leads to a situation where the environment is not suitable for life including humans, animals and trees etc. This situation is referred to as environmental pollution.
  • Solution for the environment pollution is to control it by treating sewage and industrial effluent before discharging into the environment.
Waste Water Discharge into the Environment
An Environment with and without Pollution Control
An Environment with Pollution Control
  • When it comes to discharging treated sewage and industrial effluent into water bodies such as rivers and lakes, expected pollution control is determined by

               – Quality parameters of treated sewage & industrial effluent

               – Dilution of treated sewage & industrial effluent by water in the water body.

  • Therefore, the higher the quality of treated sewage & industrial effluent, the lower the dilution required to ensure environment pollution control.
Common Sewage & Industrial Effluent Treatment Processes
  • Physical processes
  • Chemical processes and
  • Biological processes

Any sewage and/or industrial effluent treatment plant may be based on a combination  of physical, chemical & biological processes depending on the effluent quality parameters and the expected quality parameters of the treated effluent.

An aeration basin of the activated sludge process

A Biological Sewage & Industrial Effluent Treatment Plant

Sludge Thickener Tank of the Coagulation/Flocculation Process

A Chemical, Industrial Effluent Treatment Plant

Innovative Sewage & Industrial Effluent Treatment Solutions

Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) Technology
  • With Membrane Bio Reactor technology, sewage and some industrial effluents can be biologically treated to achieve discharge COD & BOD of 30 & 5 mg/l respectively.
  • Therefore, MBR technology offers a dependable solution for sewage and industrial effluent treatment for facilities with discharging constraints.
  • MBR can be retrofitted to existing biological plants with activated sludge process.
An MBR Module (Hollow Fibre)
Vacuum Evaporation for Recovery of Water from Industrial Effluent
Vacuum Evaporation Technology
  • Vacuum evaporation technology is used to recover water from  treated/raw industrial effluent depending on the nature of the effluent.  The residue would be a slurry depending on the nature of the effluent treated.
  • Thus, vacuum evaporation can be used to ensure a Zero Liquid Discharge Solution for  Industrial effluent treatment.
A Vacuum Evaporator

The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) is established under the provisions of an act of the parliament of Sri Lanka. The CEA is granted with a wide set of regulatory powers under the National Environment Acts.

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources has the overall responsibility in the affairs of the CEA with the objective of integrating environmental considerations in the development process of the country.

For legal compliance of any building or facility, discharge of waste water in to the environment is required to be complied with the guidelines stipulated by the CEA.