Acoustic Wave Separation For Industrial Waste Water Treatment

Abstract

Industries generate very large amount of waste products in form of liquids and solids. Liquid waste products are typically chemicals and oils while solid products are particles and scrap. Disposal of this waste is done by washing them away with water. Known as industrial waste water, it contains hydrocarbons, salt, radioactive material and other compounds, as well as many chemicals. To treat this water before disposal or reuse, the industry depends on filtration and separation techniques. To remove dispersed particles or droplets from a host liquid the series of complex techniques are used, which also involves additional chemicals along with high consumption of energy. Even after using those technique disposal water may contain oil droplets and few contaminants.

However Acoustic Wave Separation technology aims to change this scene. This technology uses high frequency ultrasonic sound waves produced by ultrasonic transducers to separate contaminants from waste water, thus making it reusable. It’s cost effective and efficient technology which can remove hydrocarbons, suspended particles, chemicals, nitrate, phosphate and other contaminants from waste water and thus making it safe to dispose in river.

These technologies have already been used previously for variety of purposes. This technology had been used by Laboratory for Energy in South Africa to separate suspended talcum powder from water. It has been used by Los Alamos Research laboratory for separating 10W40 motor oil from water. Akira Hiratsuka, Yugo Tomonaga, Yoshiro Yasuda, Ryoji Tsujino used different acoustic wave systems and obtained more than 90% removal rate with water containing NO2, NO3, TH etc. Also it was used in biology for continuous cell retention. Thus AWS can provide cost effective way for industrial waste water treatment. By using AWS for industrial wastewater, we aim to combine results of all previous research. Industrial waste water contains suspended particles, oil, chemicals as well as other potential contaminants like nitrate and phosphate. Thus depending on the combined result we get, AWS for waste water treatment can perform well on grounds of both cost and efficiency.