Treating Pharmaceutical Wastewater

A pharmaceutical facility in the Caribbean had an existing wastewater treatment process that utilized a sequencing batch reactor (SBR). SBRs use large tanks to collect wastewater, then a number of different options can be employed to treat the water (such as chemicals addition, aeration and mixing).

When an SBR aerobically breaks waste down, it can produce a high volume of air that needs to be treated before discharged into the atmosphere. Large catalytic oxidation (CATOX) units are often used to treat the off gas - an energy intensive step. The pharmaceutical company was able to dramatically downsize the CATOX unit by first processing the wastewater through an E-Z Tray® (U.S. Patent Number 5,518,668) Air Stripper. The high efficiency E-Z Tray stripper eliminated target VOCs in the off gas before they were introduced to the SBR. The relatively lower air flows from the E-Z Tray resulted in a much smaller CATOX unit, dramatically lowering capital, and operating costs.