Wastewater reuse in a cascade based system of a petrochemical industry for the replacement of losses in cooling towers.

This article discusses the mapping of opportunities for the water reuse in a cascade based system in a petrochemical industry in southern Brazil. This industrial sector has a large demand for water for its operation. In the studied industry, for example, approximately 24 million cubic meters of water were collected directly from the source in 2014. The objective of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the reuse of water in cascade in a petrochemical industry, focusing on the reuse of aqueous streams to replenish losses in the cooling towers. This is an industrial scale case study with real data collected during the years 2014 and 2015. Water reuse was performed using heuristic approach based on the exploitation of knowledge acquired during the search process. The methodology of work consisted of the construction of a process map identifying the stages of production and water consumption, as well as the characterization of the aqueous streams involved in the process. For the application of the industrial water reuse as cooling water, mass balances were carried out considering the maximum concentration levels of turbidity, pH, conductivity, alkalinity, calcium hardness, chlorides, sulfates, silica, chemical oxygen demand and suspended solids as parameters turbidity, pH, conductivity, alkalinity, calcium hardness, chlorides, sulfates, silica, chemical oxygen demand and suspended solids as parameters. The adopted guideline was the fulfillment of the water quality criteria for each application in the industrial process. The study showed the feasibility for the reuse of internal streams as makeup water in cooling towers, and the implementation of the reuse presented in this paper totaled savings of 385,440 m(3)/year of water, which means a sufficient volume to supply 6350 inhabitants for a period of one year, considering the average water consumption per capita in Brazil; in addition to 201,480 m(3)/year of wastewater that would no longer be generated.

[1]  Hongwei Yang,et al.  Effects of pH and temperature on forward osmosis membrane flux using rainwater as the makeup for cooling water dilution , 2014 .

[2]  S. Chien,et al.  Control of biological growth in recirculating cooling systems using treated secondary effluent as makeup water with monochloramine. , 2012, Water research.

[3]  A. Ataei,et al.  Water pinch analysis for water and wastewater minimization in Tehran oil refinery considering three contaminants , 2012, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

[4]  Jorge Otávio Trierweiler,et al.  Water reuse in tannery beamhouse process , 2010 .

[5]  Yang Liu,et al.  Water system integration of a brewhouse. , 2009 .

[6]  V. L. Santos,et al.  Reuse of refinery’s tertiary-treated wastewater in cooling towers: microbiological monitoring , 2015, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[7]  Khim Hoong Chu,et al.  Two-Step Methodology for Retrofit Design of Cooling Water Networks , 2014 .

[8]  J. C. Mierzwa,et al.  Water conservation and reuse in poultry processing plant—A case study , 2008 .

[9]  Yun Song,et al.  Water system integration and optimization in a yeast enterprise , 2015 .

[10]  Pedro Caetano Sanches Mancuso,et al.  Reúso de Água , 1989 .

[11]  A. J. V. Wal,et al.  Water and chemical savings in cooling towers by using membrane capacitive deionization , 2014 .

[12]  Malynda A. Cappelle,et al.  Membrane treatment of side-stream cooling tower water for reduction of water usage , 2012 .

[13]  Naser Mehrdadi,et al.  Water pinch analysis in oil refinery using regeneration reuse and recycling consideration , 2011 .

[14]  Jiří Jaromír Klemeš,et al.  Recent developments in Process Integration , 2013 .

[15]  Miguel J. Bagajewicz,et al.  A review of recent design procedures for water networks in refineries and process plants , 2000 .

[16]  Wasif Mughees,et al.  Application of water pinch technology in minimization of water consumption at a refinery , 2015, Comput. Chem. Eng..