44 Anaerobic treatment of an elecrongics manufacturing glycol solvent wastewater

摘要

Sprague Sanford, Inc, is a manufacturer of electronic components in southern Maine. They employ about 1, 200 pepole producing high quality capacitors. Part of their process requires the use of ethylene glyco. Costs to have this material removed from the site were very high, rising, and the haulers available for pickup service were gowing unreliable. Sprague wanted a new system to dependably address this wastestream while avoiding the high costs and uncertainty they were facing. A characterization study reveraled that approximately 100 gallons per day at 350, 000 mg COD/L needed to be handled by the new system. nearly all of the COD present was as aste ethylene glycol solvent. However, product quality concerns made recovery and reuse of this wastestream too difficult. A wastewater treatment technology screening and ceconomic analysis indicated that the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket process (UASB) was well suited for this application.