Success with activated carbon: Pollutant input of fluorosurfactants reduced
A newly developed process to clean industrial wastewaters reduces input of the environment and health damaging industrial chemical perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) by more than 87 per cent. This is the result of a pilot project carried out by Hansgrohe AG in Schiltach, Germany.
(01.06.2010) PFOS is used in the metal-working industry, for example, and belongs to the group of chemicals called fluorosurfactants or fluorinated surfactants. Two years ago, increased concentrations of this chemical were discovered in waterways in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which led the Ministry of the Environment in the state of Baden-Württemberg (Southern Germany) to begin a state-wide measurement programme: increased levels of fluorosurfactants were found in a fifth of the sewage sludge samples that were investigated. Increased levels of PFOS were first found in Schiltach's municipal sewage treatment plant in early 2007, leading to suspicions that this could be caused by the wastewater from Hansgrohe AG's production facilities. To date there are still no binding limits for fluorosurfactants in industrial wastewater.
Various chemicals are used to chrome-plate surfaces, including fluorosurfactants. They reduce the surface tension of water and considerably improve the quality of an electroplated surface. These surfactants also make an important contribution towards occupational safety, since they stop health-endangering chemicals escaping from the plating baths into the air of the production hall.
"In the new process the industrial chemical is separated from the wastewater in a two-stage activated carbon system," explains Dr. Andreas Fath from Hansgrohe AG's Technology Department. Before this system was put into practice detailed analyses of the wastewater and rinsing flows from the entire production process were carried out and the process control system was considerably re-developed so that a throughput of 140 litres per hour will be achieved. The project was subsidised by the Ministry of the Environment to the sum of € 150,000.
Author: Martin Boeckh, Gaiberg (Germany)
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