Water Treatment

ClearTreat

Industrial waste waters may be contaminated with suspended solids, heavy metals, organic compounds, and other potential pollutants. Various methods exist for removal of these contaminants to include (acidifying to break oil emulstions) precipitating heavy metals, adding primary coagulants, coagulant aids, settling, fultration etc. In general, a series of steps is necessary, requiring the addition of various chemicals, to several mixing/reaction tanks and associatied equipment. The resulting sludge produced, depending upon the initial contaminants may be classified as hazardous, entailing high disposal costs.

An alternative is available, requiring one chemical addition, to one treatment tank only. The process is simple, producting clear water and an easily dewatered sludge that generally passes the TCLP (Toxicity Characteristic Leachate Procedure) test. The CLEARTREAT products are a blend of sodium bentonite, pH adjusting additives and polymer (polyelectrolyte). These blends can be custom formulated to address specific requirements. The various ingredients act in a sequential fashion to break oil and water emulsions, precipitate heavy metals as hydoxides, promote flocculation and suspended solids removal. The specific type of bentonite clay also has the ability to ionically react with certain cationic metal ions to remove these contaminants.

The clay particles are agglomerated, encapsulating any suspended hydrocarbons and metals. The resultant sludge rapidly separates for simple removal. The solid quickly dewaters leaving a non/leaching sludge.

In summary, the bentonite clay based formulations have the ability to separate oily contaminants from the water, precipitate metallic hydroxides, ionically react with non-precipitated heavy metal cations and encapsulate the materials forming a non-hazardous waste, as can be verified by independent laboratory testing. The procedure is quite simple, one step, and can be accomplished by either manual or completely automatic mechanisms.