Industrial pollution has always been a serious burden for manufacturers. Regulators and policy makers set standards for industries producing effluents in order to keep our environment safe from any toxic chemicals able to (i) alter the quality of water and aquifers, (ii) affect human health and (iii) modify the fragile condition of ecosystems. REIIE create X team will have significant contribution by proposing customized solution for those manufacturers in need of the treatment of their industrial effluents charged in toxic chemicals before their discharge into water bodies. The goal of REIIE is to study, design, propose and build customized effluent treatment pilot plant responding to the need of every industry such as pharmaceutical companies, wineries, olive oil mills, hospitals, agrochemical producers, printing service manufacturing works, etc. The adopted technology is based on the use of advanced oxidation process driven by solar, thermal or UV activation of persulfate in a way to meet green chemistry principles for cost effective and less energy demanding systems.
Challenges
Challenges
A crucial parameter to consider in any industrial production is the generation
of a minimum volume of contaminated effluents so that to comply with
environmental regulations. Engineers developed several methods for industrial
effluent treatments however in many cases the operation cost is significant and
cannot be financially sustainable. As a result, several industries in tiers
world considered the discharge of their effluents without prior treatment
reaching finally municipal sewage impacting therefore the efficiency of the
biological treatment process. In order to alleviate stress on industrialists
more particularly pharmaceutical factories, wineries, olive oil mills and
hospitals, REIIE team will design a continuous scaled-up industrial effluent
treatment system based on the use of persulfate. This advanced oxidation process
has been proven to be one of the most efficient technologies using available
oxidant and yielding full mineralization of organic pollutants. The performance
of such system will be tested on a real pharmaceutical effluent with two
configurations: either under solar /thermal activation for roof-top installation
or UV activation for basement installation to comply with space limitation.
Summer will be dedicated to determine specifications needed for all components;
Fall semester should show the first design of a demonstration treatment plant
while the Spring semester should consider tentative installation of the pilot in
a factory.
