Chemical plants come in all different types of sizes and have many different characteristics.  They can be very old processing facilities, or have the latest, state of the art technology on the process side as well as the wastewater side. Some pre-treat and discharge to a local POTW and some have final effluent permits.   Delivering the final product is what it all comes down to! Many times Refineries have very similar problems to other treatment plants when it comes to wastewater treatment.

The chemical industry is a keystone of the U.S. economy, converting raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, minerals) into more than 70,000 different products and account for 24 % of the world's production. Foreign sales account for approximately 50% of total production.

Many Chemical Plants have numerous side streams that can be isolated and used elsewhere.  Some examples are waste streams that are high in pH, ammonia or phosphate that can be used by other waste treatment plants for very low costs, usually cheaper than the cost to treat it and dispose of.  An orange juice plant used the peel oil for food additives. Low grade waste oil could be used in odor control technology or in some essential oils for fragrances that do not require the high levels of purity for human consumption.

Some of the benefits of Pollution Prevention or Biosolids Residuals and Reuse:

Reduced Waste Treatment Costs

Reduced off site treatment or disposal costs

Reduced Capital and Operating Costs

Reduced Manufacturing costs due to higher yield

Reduced Environmental Compliance Costs ( fines or shutdowns)

Income or savings from sale or reuse of waste by-product streams or solids

The U.S. Chemical industry is the world's largest, accounting for 25% of world chemical production and 25% of all U.S. manufacturing energy use

Solids Handling Alternatives- Biosolids Land Application as opposed to Landfills

Beneficial Reuse- A new way to optimize your plant

Beneficial Reuse- What are some of the options available for hydrocarbon waste that might be used as a fuel source?
Boiler and Cooling Tower Blow down
Lab Testing and Troubleshooting Newsletter

Oil and Grease- What is it and how to get rid of it

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Chemical Plants and Refineries Case Histories

http://www.oit.doe.gov/

EPA Office of Compliance Sector Notebook Project, Profile of the Chemical Industry. More information can be obtained on the EPA website

http://es.epa.gov/oeca/sector or by contacting Environmental Leverage

There are tons of files containing information on every subject from A to Z on the internet with standards, benchmarks and industry BMP's.  The problems is, who has time to dig and find it all. It is not always in easy to find places.  We have tried to show you some of the ones we though might be useful. There are links to the places where we found some of them in case you want to dig deeper on a particular subject and find out more.

Energy

The U.S. chemical industry consumed about 6.9 quads of energy in 2000. This represents about 7% of domestic energy use and about 25% of all U.S. manufacturing energy use. Nearly 50% of energy used is transformed into chemical products. About one third of electricity used by the chemical industry is produced onsite, primarily by means of cogeneration. The industry has made significant improvements in energy efficiency over the last decades, reducing energy use per unit of output by over 39% between 1974 and 1995.
The Chemicals Industry uses 4.3 quadrillion Btu of energy annually. Steam accounts for approximately 52% of the chemical industry's energy costs, while an additional 20% goes towards compressed air.

Boiler and Cooling Tower Blowdown
Cooling Tower Microscopic analyses
Lab Testing and Troubleshooting Newsletter

Ashing on clarifier can significantly contribute to BOD and TSS problems.  Check your clarifier beds. The solids are probably being held too long in your clarifier if you start to see scum build-up, ashing, floating solids or are having TSS problems.

Equalization tanks and Wetwells

Many refineries and petrochemical plants have large storage tanks that they bleed into their secondary biological system. If  wastewater is held too long in these tanks, it can become septic and impact the efficiency of the secondary biological system. Sometimes, something as simple as adding a small mixer or recirculation pump can help with septicity problems and filamentous bacteria growth.

Since many Chemical plants make more than one product, they are constantly changing the food source for the bacteria in their wastewater treatment plant. This can sometimes cause problems in developing a healthy biomass. BOD and TSS problems are usually a result from the constant swings. The changes are sometimes reflected not only in the flow, but in the amounts and types of BOD.  This makes it very hard to run a wastewater treatment plant without constant adjustments to the process parameters.  

Many times a bad batch is made or off spec product is developed and sent to the waste treatment plant. Some plants isolate these in tanks or have them hauled off as Hazardous waste.  Batch treatment in those tanks can be done with bioaugmentation  so that the waste can be sent to the onsite wastewater treatment plant after initial treatment and safely treated instead of enormous amounts of dollars spent on hazardous waste treatment or upsets to the normal treatment plant.  Bioaugmentation can help with the constant swings in a chemical plant and help make it easier to run the biological wastewater treatment plant.

PetroChemical plants have  numerous wastewater issues in their plants. Some plants have too many amines in the influent and need to nitrify. Some plants have no ammonia or amines and have to add nitrogen as a nutrient for the bacteria. Nutrient control at petrochemical plants can be an issue, depending upon which side you are dealing with. Both need monitor and control for proper biological activity and final effluent BOD and TSS controls along side of nutrient control.

Why you should do a Total Nitrogen Balance
Oh no, my nitrifiers are dead and I am not getting nitrification!
How important are Nutrients

Many Chemical plants have large storage tanks that they bleed into their secondary biological system. If  wastewater is held too long in these tanks, it can become septic and impact the efficiency of the secondary biological system. Sometimes, something as simple as adding a small mixer or recirculation pump can help with septicity problems and filamentous bacteria growth.
 
Temperature can be sometimes be an issue. Influent temperatures over 95° F or 100° F  can impact floc formation in the secondary biological system. While many plants can get BOD degradation up to 115° F or 120° F if consistent, floc formation is small, pin floc persists and the system may require polymer addition in the secondary clarifier or TSS problems will occur.

Influent chemistries may be composed of hard to degrade organics. Influent wastes may contain aliphatic hydrocarbons, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile aromatic carbon compounds. sometimes the systems need to be enhanced with biological products to efficiently degrade such compounds as benzenes, phenols, hydrocarbons, mercaptans, amines, organic alcohols, many chlorinated and non-chlorinated hydrocarbons, surfactants and other difficult to treat compounds.  Micronutrients or biological products can often times overcome difficulties that petrochemical plants have with changing influents and hard to degrade compounds.  These products can also be used for onsite tank remediation to save thousands of dollars for the company by using bacteria to naturally clean up these tanks.

Chemical plants routinely have problems with filamentous bulking due to the fact that the influent stream consistently changes as new products or lines are changes. Bulking can cause an increase in polymer consumption and sludge handling costs.

 Learn more about filaments and how to save money at your plant. Electricity is usually the number one cost at many wastewater treatment plants, but solids handling is second. Reducing the amount of solids that need to be dewatered, and hauled off can significantly reduce operating costs. Chemical plants sometimes have hard to treat organics that they send down to the wastewater treatment plant.

 Learn how a biological program or micronutrients can help you plant meet tighter permit restrictions in a more efficient way. MicroSolv 400 Bacteria formulation for the Chemical Industry along with MicroClear M100 Micronutrients for Wastewater Applications

Beneficial Reuse

Many plants have spent caustic or Acid. Did you know a papermill could possibly use the acid to raise lower their pH into their influent and save them some money as well as allow their treatment plant to work more efficiently?  A steel mill might have spent fluids that could be used for pH adjustment.
We worked with one chemical plant that spent millions of dollars to lime neutralize the acid stream. We discussed options to take that acid stream out of the normal wastewater flow and be used elsewhere, thereby saving treatment costs, landfill costs, maintenance costs, etc. upwards of many millions of dollars a year.
 
Pulling a plant apart and looking at all the streams that contribute to waste generation are part of a total system audit. Everything is looked at to see if a stream can be pre-treated cheaper as a side stream or better yet, sold off as a "beneficial re-use" by product.

Case History-Tank Remediation at a PetroChemical Plant

We are working with a PetroChemical plant down in Louisiana. They had an 800,000 gallon tank filled with wastewater that they wanted to clean up and empty out. We suggested a biological program-MicroSolv 400 for tank remediation.

The plant started the program and had the tank cleaned up in less than three weeks, yet the tank had been sitting there filled for over three years. They were tremendously impressed. They would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to haul out the waste.
Tank remediation is not really that hard. As long as the contents are organic, it is actually quite simple. To the bacteria, it is just food. Since the waste stream is already isolated, it becomes just a time and numbers game with the right species of bacteria. Inoculate the tank with bacteria, make sure the critical 5 are in place- (pH, D.O., temperature, N and P) and watch them go to work!

It does not really take long depending upon how much you seed the tank with. And the bacteria grow and multiply exponentially, so just sit back and wait. You wind up with a clean tank, clear effluent, and some bacteria residuals on the bottom of the tank that need to be disposed of- ( usually sent to the plants onsite dewatering system) or land applied.

Industrial zone Alon Tavor Israel

Plant Issues

900 m3 of Contaminated Soil.

Pollution: Crude oil.

Several option where evaluated and E. H. Green/Environmental Leverage bioaugmentation program solution was elected.

Due to the Hydrologic Area which the plant is located in ,the EPA of Israel instructed the plant to move the soil or reduce the TPH ( Total petroleum Hydrocarbons) from 842 to 100 ppm. Initial proposal assumed that it would take a few months due to high heat in the summer, and mainly the amount of soil and contamination to treat. After two weeks, TPH was down to 311, the following week, 133.

Final TPH levels were pulled at 4 locations- 38, 39,81 and 37 were the final TPH readings, ~90-95.6% reduction in TPH ( Total petroleum Hydrocarbons)

80% cost reduction in treating the soil biologically including labor, nutrients, biological products, etc vs. hauling out the dirt as hazardous waste~

Soil Remediation Case History- Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons

Audits and Onsite Training and Consulting

 In order to "Audit" or Troubleshoot a Chemical wastewater treatment plant, a number of things need to be looked at. A physical walk-through of the plant needs to be conducted with visual observations noted. A microscopic analyses of the Biological portion of the waste treatment system needs to be conducted. Settleometer Testing needs to be conducted A sludge judge should be used on a Clarifier Examination of lab data- current testing procedures and results Walk through and correlation of process side to wastewater treatment plant operations A fully detailed final report is issued with process recommendations, system changes, areas for optimization and increased efficiency.

For a full onsite audit of your plant- Contact Environmental Leverage inc. 630-906-9791

More troubleshooting for chemical plants:

Troubleshooting Lagoon Systems

For a full onsite audit of your plant- Contact Environmental Leverage inc. 630-906-9791

Wastewater in the Fall- Problems and Solutions