Processing of food from raw materials requires large volumes of high grade water. Vegetable washing generates waters with high loads of particulate matter and some dissolved organics. It may also contain surfactants.

Animal slaughter and processing produces very strong organic waste from body fluids, such as blood, and gut contents. This wastewater is frequently contaminated by significant levels of antibiotics and growth hormones from the animals and by a variety of pesticides used to control external parasites. Insecticide residues in fleeces is a particular problem in treating waters generated in wool processing.

Processing food for sale produces wastes generated from cooking which are often rich in plant organic material and may also contain salt, flavourings, colouring material and acids or alkali. Very significant quantities of oil or fats may also be present.

Treatment of other organics

Synthetic organic materials including solvents, paints, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, coking products and so forth can be very difficult to treat. Treatment methods are often specific to the material being treated. Methods include Advanced Oxidation Processing, distillation, adsorption, vitrification, incineration, chemical immobilisation or landfill disposal. Some materials such as some detergents may be capable of biological degradation and in such cases, a modified form of wastewater treatment can be used.

Pre-filtering and Reverse Osmosis (RO)

Our experience with wastewater from Cheese and Milk processing facilities is reclaiming water from the milk or whey stream for reuse in the factory.  By using spiral wound membranes we can recover water from the process stream.  This water may be used in boilers, rinse and final rinse in the factory cutting down the need to use private wells or city water, saving the customer money in the end.  The use of polishers or as some manufactures call them water recovery systems(wrs) may be needed to make water useable in the final rinse process.  In the end there will still be a small concentrated stream of waste going to your activated sludge or other waste water treatment facility.

Often prefiltering will be required to remove the suspended solids (SS) in the process steam of other types of food processing ficilities.  For example processes that use DE diamatatious earth would clog and fill the pores of RO elements eliminating the ability for water to permeate through the membrane.

Food and beverage:

• Purificaton of water for use in soft drinks, juces and other beverages
• Bottled Water
• Desalination of water for human consumption
• Portable water treatment facilities for military and humanitarian purposes
• Contamination removal
• Reclaiming water from milk, whey, cranberry processing for CIP

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