Site study to recycle airborne wastewater at heavy-industry factory in South America concluded

We have concluded a site study at a heavy-industry factory in South America hoping to recycle airborne wastewater from production to limit the negative effects of water scarcity. The results look good.

The site is a heavy industry factory, whose production involves drying liquid substance into powder, releasing high levels of dust in the process. Water is a key input in the process. After processing, it is evaporated and discharged as airborne wastewater via chimneys. The site has no steady water supply, and water is being trucked in. This is costly and toilsome, and it makes production stability fragile.

Therefore, there is an ambition to recycle as much airborne wastewater as possible. However, the air has very high content of dust coming from production. This dust prevents the use of traditional equipment for recovery of airborne water, because of clogging. Available technology currently on the market for cleaning high volumes of dust are wet scrubbers, but they are very water-consuming. It is therefore counter-productive to use them to recycle airborne water.

The study finds that this site could potentially recycle 75% of its water with the help of Drupps Vapor.

This is made possible by the wet-scrubbing function of Drupps Vapor, where process air can be cleaned with very little water loss. In the next step, airborne water can be extracted into liquid water again.

The exact payback of such an investment depends on how water is priced. Often, water's price is confused with its grid price. But when production security, increased speed of production, and reduced need for water shipments are factored in, this figure tend to rise rapidly.

For this news update, we conclude that the investment has clear potential of being attractive to the customer.