One of the 4 pilot plants to be established within the scope of the Project “ZERO BRINE - Re-designing the value and supply chain of water and minerals: a circular economy approach for the recovery of resources from saline impaired effluent (brine) generated by process industries”, which is partnered by the Environment and Cleaner Production Institute of TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center under the EU Horizon 2020 Program, was commissioned at Zorluteks Tekstil enterprise.
The project with 22 partners to be completed by the end of the year 2021 aims to achieve the recovery of valuable substances, through various technologies, from concentrated saline effluents (brine) created as part of industrial filtration processes. The management of concentrated articles has come to the fore all over the world in parallel with the development of membrane technologies; and the number of studies in this field has recently increased.
Within the scope of the project, a pilot plant with a capacity of 2-4 m3/day was commissioned at Zorluteks Tekstil Company operating in Lüleburgaz, Kırklareli, for the recovery of saline and water in order to evaluate the reusability of concentrated membrane effluents of recycled textile wastewater.
In the pilot plant, it will be investigated how to conduct pretreatment to remove impurities in the concentrated effluents, how to concentrate the brine and how to reuse the brine in textile processes. The facility includes hybrid processes such as ozone oxidation, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. Considering the project design and operation data of the pilot plant, it is estimated that the discharge of concentrated effluents with high pollution load can be prevented and that it may be possible to achieve water recovery from concentrated effluents by 60%, reduction in the water use of the textile plant by 15-20%, reduction in the use of brine in the plant by 40% and saving in the use of raw material NaCl by 60-70%. So, it will be possible to reduce the impacts of these discharges on the environment and even the CO2 emissions.
The pilot plant stands out as a good practice example for businesses that use processes such as reverse osmosis and have to manage concentrated effluents.
The pilot plant investigations will continue until June 2021, and analyses and optimization studies are going ahead on the samples taken from the plant. Detailed information about the project can be found on the project website (https://zerobrine.eu/).
