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Advice regarding electroplating wastes and inline systems

My name is Rose Mason and I am an undergraduate at Unitec Institute of Technology in New Zealand, studying a Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental). I am currently undertaking a 6 month research project within the degree. My research partner, Sarah Mannion, and I are looking at the potential of reusing treated wastewater from an electroplating plant back through the system, to reduce water use and the effects on the environment; and the feasibility of installing a semi-automated inline system, to increase production efficiency's and reduce contamination.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions as to where to look for information. Any help or knowledge would be most appreciated!

Kindest Regards,

Rose Mason
- New Zealand
 

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Hi, Rose.

If at all possible you should try to arrange to visit a plating shop because it is by far the fastest and easiest way to understand the issues. If you just start reading, it's hard to even fully appreciate all aspects of the question in your 6 month time frame :-)

But trying to reuse treated water is generally the wrong approach, because conventional "treatment" implies adding soluble salts from NaOH, H2SO4, CaCl, FeCl2, etc., that you must then proceed to remove as your first step in re-use. What you probably want to actually do is take the "used" water rather than the "treated" water and figure out how to reuse that. Maybe by getting it back into the tank, maybe by evaporation, maybe by ion-exchange to capture the metal values, maybe by reverse osmosis. But my overall point is that treating water to make it ready for discharge adds chemicals that you don't want in there if you are reusing it. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey