Everything About Water July 2008

Implementing UF for
Water Reuse
By Sachin Malekar

The New Zero Discharge Plant for 3 million metric tonnes per annum
Expansion at Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL) A Case
Study

M/s Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL) expanded its crude refining
capacity at Manali by 3 million tonnes per annum.As part of the 3.0 MMTA
Expansion Project ,a new Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP-III) was constructed to
treat effluents generated from it for meeting MINAS standard. With a view of
conserving water a new zero discharge plant was installed comprising of
Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis membrane processes. This plant treats the
treated water from the above effluent treatment plant so as to make use of the
treated water as make up to DM plant.

The capacity of the Zero Discharge facility (ZDP) is 200 m3/h.The plant was
commissioned in the year 2005. The unit includes pre-treatment section followed
by Ultra filtration and Reverse Osmosis process. The characteristics of the
treated effluent from ETP-III are as follows:

Sr.No. Parameter Unit Value

1 pH 6 to 8.5 (6.5 normal)

2 Oil and Grease mg/L 10
3 Suspended Solids mg/L 20
4 Particulate size of mg/L Shall pass 850 microns IS sieve
suspended solids
5 BOD5 mg/L 15
6 COD mg/L 250
7 Conductivity micromhos/cm 3060
8 Total Dissolved mg/L 1860
Solids
9 Chlorides mg/L 850
10 Calcium mg/L 130
11 Magnesium mg/L 70
12 Phosphates mg/L 5
13 Silica mg/L 20-40
14 Phenols mg/L 1.0
15 Sulphides mg/L 1.0
16 Total residual mg/L 1.0
chlorine
17 Ammonical mg/L 50
nitrogen (as N)
18 Total kjeldahl mg/L 100
(Nitrogen (as N))
19 Free Ammonia (as mg/L 5
NH3)
20 Arsenic (as As) mg/L 0.2
21 Mercury (as Hg) mg/L 0.01
22 Lead ( as Pb) mg/L 0.1
23 Cadmium (as Cd) mg/L 2
24 Total chromium (as mg/L 2
Cr)
25 Hexavalent mg/L 0.1
Chromium (as Cr)
26 Copper (as Cu) mg/L 3
27 Zinc (as Zn) mg/L 5
28 Nickel (as Ni) mg/L 3
29 Selenium (as Se) mg/L 0.05
30 Cyanide (as CN) mg/L 0.2
31 Fluoride (as F) 2
32 Manganese (as 2
Mn)
33 Iron (as Fe) 3
34 Vanadium (as V) 0.2
35 Nitrate Nitrogen 10
36 Radioactive metals
a) Alpha 10-7
emitters
Curie ,max
b) Beta
emitters 10-6
Curie ,max

In order to recycle as much water as possible, it is necessary that the water at

the inlet of membrane process meet the desired water quality. Therefore an
elaborate treatment process was needed.
 The treatment scheme for the ZDP is as follows:

FeCl3 + Polyelectrolyte

Treated
Effluent Equalization Coagulation Pressure Sand PSF
Pond Tank Filter (PSF)
(Existing) Feed Tank

Ultrafiltration Ultrafiltration Reverse Cartridge Filter

(UF) Feed System Osmosis (RO)
Tank Feed Tank

Permeate to DM Plant
RO System

Reject to drain

Process Description:

1) Guard Pond: The treated water on MINAS quality is stored in Guard pond
of the 3 MMTA project. The water from the guard pond is pumped to
existing equalization pond located near the earlier zero discharge plant.

1) Equalization Pond (Existing): The equalization pond is used to damp flow

variations from the existing ETP in order to achieve a constant flowrate.

2) Coagulation Tank /Coagulator: The effluent from the equalization tank is

pumped to the coagulation tank. Coagulation and flocculation are
employed to remove suspended solids from the effluent. The process is
carried out by adding a coagulant (in this case FeCl3) which forms large
flocs of ferric hydroxide to which the suspended solids adhere and settle
at the bottom of the tank. A polyelectrolyte is also added in order to
enhance the process of floc formation and agglomeration. The tank is
provided with an agitator to disperse the coagulant and the polyelectrolyte
uniformly.
 3) Pressure Sand Filter: The effluent from the coagulation tank flows into the
pressure sand filter feed tank from where it is pumped to the two up-flow
pressure sand filters. Pressure sand filter (PSF) provides an effluent with
turbidity less than 5 NTU.

4) Ultrafiltration System: The treated effluent from the PSF flows to the UF
feed tank. From here the effluent is pumped to the UF membranes. UF is
a low pressure (5 - 150 psig) process for separating larger size solutes
from aqueous solutions by means of a semi-permeable membrane.UF
retains oils, particulate matter, bacteria and suspended solids in order to
provide a permeate void of these impurities so as to make it suitable for
RO.The differential pressure between the feed and permeate increases
during filtration. Hence, periodic back flushing is done to control this
increase in pressure.

5) RO system: The effluent from the UF system flows to the RO feed

tank.RO is a moderate to high pressure (80-1200 psig) driven process for
separating larger size solutes from aqueous solutions by means of a semi-
permeable membrane. This process is carried out by flowing a process
solution along a membrane surface under pressure. RO membranes reject
dissolved and suspended materials including monovalent salts to give
pure water. Three banks of each 110 m3/h capacity (Two working and one
standby) have been installed in order to have common spare philosophy.

6) The permeate from the RO system is collected in existing 1.5 MG

reservoir for cooling tower make up and 2.5 MG closed reservoir for DM
water make up.

.
Design criteria and performance of each unit:

1) Pre-Treatment Section: The pre-treatment section comprises of the

coagulator and the pressure sand filter. The coagulator has been
designed with a detention time of 20 minutes while the pressure sand
filters have been designed with a service velocity of 12 m/h for a service
cycle of 24 hours. There are three filters (2 working +1 standby) with 3400
mm 1350 mm HOS. The consistent performance of the pre-
treatment section is given below :
 PSF Feed
Turbidity
PSF Outlet

16

12
NTU

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Period in days

PSF Inlet
Conductivity
PSF Outlet
2800
2700
micromhos/cm

2600
2500
2400
2300
2200
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Period in days
 2) Ultra filtration:

There are three UF skids each consisting of seven trains. There are 4
membranes in each train. The membranes are NORIT X-FLOW hollow fiber
single layered (insert type) membranes having a molecular weight cut off of
100 kDa.Each membrane has an area of 40 m2 .The product recovery of UF
is 90 %. The product specification at the outlet of UF and the present
performance of UF is given below:

Sr.No. Parameter Unit Value

141 pH 6 to 8.5
2 Oil and Grease mg/L Nil
3 Suspended Solids mg/L Nil
4 Turbidity NTU <1
5 Ammonia mg/L 1
6 COD mg/L BDL
7 Conductivity micromhos/cm 3060
8 Total Dissolved Solids mg/L 1860
9 Chlorides mg/L 850
10 Calcium mg/L 130
11 Magnesium mg/L 70
12 M-alkalinity mg/L 62
13 Nitrate mg/L 20
14 Phosphates mg/L 5
15 Silica mg/L 20 to 40
16 Sulphates mg/L 300
17 Sodium mg/L 434
18 Potassium mg/L 40
19 Silt Density Index (SDI) mg/L Less than 2.0
20 Others mg/L BDL

Performance of the UF system:

The performance of the UF system can be easily gauged on the parameters like
SDI and the turbidity.
 UF-Oulet
Turbidity
UF Desired
Outlet

0.095
NTU

0.045

-0.005
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Period in days

UF Performance - SDI

2.5

1.5 Outlet
SDI

1 Desired

0.5

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Days

3) Reverse Osmosis (RO):

The reverse osmosis unit comprises of 3 skids of 110 m3/h capacity each. The
arrangement is 2 working + 1 standby. Each skid has three banks with each bank
having 12, 6 and 3 vessels respectively. There are 6 membranes in each vessel.
Membranes are of TORAY make, model no. TML 20-400.The system recovery is
85 %.The design product specification at the outlet of RO and the present
consistent performance of RO is given in the table below:

Design product specification:

Sr.No. Parameter Unit Value
1 pH 6.97
2 Oil and Grease mg/L Nil
3 Conductivity micromhos/cm 100
4 Turbidity NTU Nil
5 Total Dissolved Solids mg/L 35
6 Total Suspended Solids mg/L Nil
7 Calcium mg/L 2.6
8 Magnesium mg/L 1.4
9 M-alkalinity mg/L 1.2
10 Chlorides mg/L 37
11 Sulphates mg/L 6
12 Silica mg/L 0.4-0.8
13 COD mg/L BDL
14 Phosphates mg/L 0.1
15 Ammonia mg/L Nil

Performance of the RO section:

The performance of the RO section is shown graphically in terms of the key

parameters like Chloride and hardness:

Chlorides RO Outlet
RO Desired

40

30
ppm

20

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Period in days
 RO Outlet
Calcium Hardness
RO Design

3
ppm

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Period in days

RO Outlet
Magnesium Hardness RO Desired

2
ppm

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Period in days

Observation and Conclusion:

From the above results it is seen that the plant is performing well with each
section giving the desired output in terms of quality and quantity. The ZDP has
helped CPCL in reduction of fresh water intake and its dependency on Metro
water availability.

The author, Sachin Malekar is the Divisional Manager-Technology, Ion

Exchange(India) Ltd. For further information on the author, write to us at
content@eawater.com