Membranes mean no money down the drain
22 Aug 2000
At its Colwyn Bay factory in North Wales, Quinton Hazell manufactures water pumps and steering components for the car industry. Like many such engineering operations, the factory generates two types of oily wastewater -that from casting and deburring processes, and wastewater from general machining such as spent coolant and floor washings. Previously all wastewater was discharged to drain, but the company had to meet ISO 14001 by this year. This would have meant tankering away the large volumes of wastewater, so Quinton Hazell opted instead for a treatment plant from Koch Membrane Systems. This uses a combination of ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis to treat the wastewater from all the manufacturing processes.
The combined plant can handle around 20 000 litres of wastewater a week, generating only around 1m3 of concentrate to be tankered away.
