Advanced ZLD process claims lower energy and costs

Swiss process water purification company Aquarion Group has introduced ZLD-ECO, an advanced hybrid zero liquid discharge (ZLD) system, which optimizes the ZLD process.

ZLD-ECO utilizes innovative, proprietary pretreatment processes to reduce thermal treatment, resulting in lower energy and chemical consumption, and reduced capital cost.

The process uses less energy by capturing and reusing the waste energy and recycling it for application in other process steps. This energy return optimizes flux rates with respect to membrane technologies.

It provides high recovery rates of 90-99%, depending on the source water.

“The term ‘ECO’ emphasizes the highly economical aspects of this system,” said Karl Michael Millauer, CEO of Aquarion Group. “We believe that, with its lower capital and operating expenditure, ZLD-ECO is the lowest cost technology available to achieve ZLD.”

ZLD-ECO features a modular, compact design with short production times that can be easily scaled up from plants that produce as little as 1 m³/h of treated water to more than 1,000 m³/h based on the system configuration, the type of source water and its specific chemistry. It can be used to treat salt water, industrial sewage, process water and recycled water.

It also allows for the removal and recycling of expensive materials in the wastewater – for example, metals like silver, nickel or copper used in the electroplating process. ZLD-ECO can be used for a variety of applications including power plants, mining, the chemical and electroplating industries, upstream oil and gas, both on- and off-shore, and downstream oil & gas facilities.