Many industrial facilities have been innovative in their choice for alternatives to using ground or surface water or potable freshwater or that could be exploited for potable or agricultural use. These alternate sources have historically been private water sources such as intake of surface water from lakes or rivers or private wells.
The use of impaired waters as source water has dramatically increased in direct response to the pressure to reduce industrial use of these sources of water. The amount of on-site reuse has been substantially increased, as has the exploration of alternative impaired water sources.
Municipally treated wastewater or grey-water is one of the most common impaired water sources today. Grey water is rich in nutrients, abundant, does not strain local water sources, and maybe best of all, it is low-cost or even free. If left untreated, grey water can result in scale formation or other biological concerns on treatment equipment. Fortunately though, innovative engineering and treatment technologies can solve these issues. Surface waters remain a prominent source-water for industrial facilities.
The U.S. Geological Survey ) has been capturing water withdrawal trends at five-year intervals since 1950, and in its last report (2010), it found that surface waters still compose 78% of all withdrawals.
We are seeing recycled wastewater use as a growing trend however; this evolving trend is driven by increased competition for available water as well as strict discharge regulations.
Whether the water source is surface or not, technology to make water treatment more efficient has been recently been advancing in the following categories:
- Coarse particle filtration
- Ion exchange
- Reverse osmosis (RO)
- Ultrafiltration
Process water is not considered as drinking water, and is fundamentally used in relation to industrial plants, industrial processes and production facilities. Process water is subjected to a substantial water treatment and includes: brewing water, cooling water, ion removed water, media-filtered water, purified water, rinse and wash water, softened water, ultra-pure water, and desalination water using RO.
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