Group 4
Question: What is the process of water
recycling? Describe with necessary
sketches.
Answer:
What is water recycling?
Water recycling (also known as water reclamation) is the process of
treating wastewater and putting it back into circulation.
The water is treated to filter solids and remove certain
contaminants, which can be organic or inorganic. The treatments
required depend on the types of contaminants in the water and the
desired specification of the purified product.
Water recycling saves resources through reuse and is particularly
useful in areas where water is limited. It can serve as a dependable
source of was organizations meet their environmental goals.
How water recycling systems work:
Water recycling systems remove contaminants from wastewater to
create a purified product. There are several technologies used in
this process, sized and specified depending on the composition and
load of the wastewater.
Today, it’s possible to recycle, reclaim and reuse water without
chemicals, making water recycling an even more eco-friendly
process, which is also critical for industries where the use of
chemicals like chlorine is prohibited.
Modern water recycling units use a combination of membrane
filtration for the removal of solids, and biological treatment for
removing organic and oxidizable matter, combined into a single
system called a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR).
Membrane Bioreactors
A Membrane Bioreactor is a biological wastewater treatment
system, in which organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus are
eliminated by the microorganisms inside the reactor, which
assimilate contaminants into a biomass.
Biological water treatment is not a new concept, with the use of
activated sludge going back decades. However, MBRs are self-
contained water treatment systems with lower waste, no secondary
clarifiers and higher volumetric loading rates.
For example, the Embracing bioreactor supports flow rates up to
2,000m3/day, enabling industrial-scale treatment with a single
machine.
Ceramic membranes
Ceramic membranes are filters that filter fluids with high
concentrations of suspended solids. The ceramic membranes
provide filtration at high flows and are suitable for filtering high-
loaded water and liquid waste.
Ceramic membranes are deployed in the aforementioned
Membrane Bioreactor as an additional treatment. The membranes
can be of the Ultrafiltration (UF) or Nanofiltration (NF) type, and
some bioreactors make use of both.
Both membranes work in the same way: a contaminated liquid
passes through a membrane at pressure, yielding a purified liquid
stream.
Ceramic membranes treat wastewater and effluent that is high
loaded with oils, salts and other solids and minerals. By combining
biological treatments with ceramic membranes, an MBR removes
organic and inorganic contaminants efficiently.
NAMIBIA HAS BEEN TREATING WASTEWATER FOR DRINKING
SINCE 1968
in this field, and this remains a little-known fact, it's yet another country
that remains the undisputed pioneer: Namibia. At 139th place in the ranking
of countries by level of development, it may come as a surprise that this
southern African state is so much in the vanguard, but when you consider
the near-absence of water resources in its capital, Windhoek, it's
immediately less surprising that this municipality has sought to innovate.
Aerial view of Windhoek, a capital born in the middle of the desert.
In the middle of an arid plain, more than 200 km from the coast,
Windhoek (population 500,000) can neither harvest the scarce rainwater,
which evaporates almost immediately in its desert latitudes, nor draw
from the rivers or groundwater in the surrounding area, which are only
recharged to a limited extent when they are not dried up. In 1968, the city,
then under South African domination, was also seeing its population grow
at an impressive rate, when it began to recycle its wastewater and
transform it into drinking water. Fifty-five years later, 30% of wastewater is
recycled into drinking water in less than ten hours. The rest of the
domestic drinking water comes from dams and boreholes in other parts
of the country.