Design and Start-up of an Advanced Treatment System for High Strength Wastewater from a Chemical Plant

Expansion at a chemical plant would produce additional wastewater, including some lowvolume, high strength (130,000 mg COD/L), process wastewater. At full production capacity, the organic loading from the additional 15,700 gallons of process wastewater (three waste streams A, B, and C) would be 17,000 pounds chemical oxygen demand (COD) per day (maximum capacity is 20,000 gpd and 24,000 pounds COD per day). Current total organic loading at the local publicly owned treatment works (POTW) is 1,000 to 2,000 pounds COD per day. The new wastewater would also be high in dissolved solids, averaging 80,000 mg/L non-volatile dissolved solids (NVDS). Pretreatment requirements for the local POTW are provided in Table 1. The additional wastewater would require extensive pretreatment and discharge to a local POTW or hauling to an off-site treatment and disposal facility (at considerable expense).