Water recovery by treatment of food industry wastewater using membrane processes

ABSTRACT

This work presents a proposal for the recovery of water through the treatment of food industry wastewater using membrane processes. Three wastewater streams from the different manufacturing steps were identified as possible sources of water recovery: (1) wastewater from the washing of ionic exchange resins and (2) wastewater from the concentration stage of animal proteins (type 1 and 2). The wastewater streams were treated as effluent mixtures; each one with different level of pollution. The principal characteristics of the effluent mixtures were identified as high conductivity and the presence of organic matter. Under these conditions, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis were carried out for the treatment of wastewater. The ultrafiltration process was tested at an industrial-level plant and the reverse osmosis process was applied at a pilot-plant level. The results showed the feasibility of the proposed treatment for water recovery. The data demonstrates an efficiency greater than 95% in all the quality parameters and therefore, a high quality in the recovered water was obtained by membrane processes. According to the chemical composition of wastewater, the reversible fouling was linked to salts and protein retention, promoting the formation of a cake layer as reversible resistance; whereas, irreversible fouling was minimum during wastewater treatment.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Water recovery
• water reuse
• food wastewater
• industrial effluents
• membrane processes

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a food industry company of the State of Mexico, which provided the effluents under study, installations and valuable information. We would also like to thank the National Council of Science and Technology (‘CONACyT’) for the scholarship granted by them in order to study the Masters in Environmental Engineering Sciences, within the installations of the ‘Tecnológico Nacional de México-Toluca’ (No. 788926).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Claudia Muro http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4394-5851

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Council of Science and Technology (‘CONACyT’).