FERRIC CHLORIDE ETCHANT RINSEWATER
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Client: Hard Disk Components Manufacturer (Photo Etching) Capacity: 150,000 Gallons Per Day Commissioned: 1994 & 1997 Feedwater: Ferric Chloride Etchant Rinsewater |
A ferric chloride Etching process is used to manufacture precision parts of hard disk drives from stainless steel feedstock. The etching process generates an effluent stream contaminated with iron, chromium, nickel, and a significantly high level of suspended solids. The client evaluated whether to install a low cost clarifier process to meet municipal waste treatment plant discharge standards or whether Reclamation and Process Water Reuse would offer a sufficiently attractive return on capital investment. For reclamation, high levels of reduction were required for the heavy metals and suspended solids in order to produce a high quality Reverse Osmosis feedwater. The client recognized that conventional clarification and media filtration would offer an unacceptably high risk to critically important Reverse Osmosis performance and that any reclaim process would have to include some type of Membrane Filtration to assure long term stable Reverse Osmosis membrane performance.
Process Scientific, Inc. performed technical and economic feasibility studies which resulted in the development of a process design involving Chemical Precipitation, Crossflow Tubular Microfiltration, and Reverse Osmosis. As a result, PSI was awarded a contract to design and manufacture the wastewater reclamation system for this high tech application.
The process design allowed the client to achieve the following
objectives:
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1. Recovered the capital investment in a period of less than
18 months.
2. Assured that Reverse Osmosis performance would not be placed in jeopardy.
3. Met commitments to the environment by conserving water and reducing the load on the local sanitary system (included in the company's mission statement).
After commissioning, the financial evaluation was confirmed based on actual operating data, and a second system was purchased for installation in a new manufacturing facility by the same client in a different city. References can be furnished upon request.