Whether its for municipalities, industries, or commercial facilities, water and wastewater treatment regulations are consistently changing, as new pollutants and contaminants are discovered and researched. For example, pathogenic microorganisms have been studied for their effects on human health, their points of origin and reach, and the ways they can be dealt with for well over a century. On top of improving treatment, there is also increasing strain on municipal and industrial organizations to improve the sustainability of their operations in the face of growing concerns with the water scarcity issues. One way to improve sustainability is through the implementation of tertiary UV light disinfection.

Genesis Water Technologies, Inc. (GWT) strives to provide our clients with such innovative technology, to help them achieve their treatment and sustainability goals. Just one of the technologies we implement in our treatment systems is geared for disinfection.

UV light disinfection is not a new method of disinfection, but its efficiency and effectiveness has grown tremendously in the past decade. GWT is a firm believer in using chemical based water treatments only where necessary, due to some of their inherent disadvantages. As disinfectants, chemicals such as chlorine can many times result in harmful disinfection byproducts (THM’s or Haloacetic acids) as well as the hazards associated with their presence on site. UV light disinfection practically nullifies such concerns of these byproducts as its a chemical free process. As such, GWT has utilized this technology in a number of our client projects with great success.

Below, we will look at just two of these project examples. One example is an industrial client setting and another in a municipal wastewater reuse client.

Liquor Distillery Process Water

The beverage industry makes use of large volumes of water as both an ingredient, process, and wash water. Beverage products are consumed by millions of people each day, so it is vital that anything that goes into the production process be completely free of pathogenic microbes. Therefore, beverage processing facilities need to make use of disinfection methods to treat the water they get from their water sources before it is used.

GWT partnered with a liquor company that needed to improve the quality of its process water to meet increasing standards and regulations in its distilleries. Their raw water contained levels of several types of bacteria including Pseudonomas aeruginosa. They requested that GWT design a treatment system to kill the bacteria to ensure water safety. The finished system was installed by our local partner and consisted of a bag filtration unit to deal with any sediment or turbidity and three UV light disinfection units in parallel to kill the bacteria. Since installation, the client met all local requirements and standards for their beverage process water.

Municipal Wastewater Treatment & Reuse

Central wastewater treatment plants are invaluable parts of municipal infrastructure to improve the health and wellness of the local population, treating waste from residential homes, public buildings, and nearby commercial and industrial facilities. However, water treatment systems are not one size fits all and treating wastewater from a variety of sources can expose the gaps in more conventional treatment processes that may be unable to treat pollutants that they were not specifically designed for. At that point, serious consideration should be taken for decentralized systems that are implemented on site of each source of wastewater. Each of them would be tailored to maximize treatment efficiency based on the makeup of the wastewater of that individual facility.

GWT has designed such systems in the municipal sector many times, one such project involving a mid-size municipality. Their wastewater treatment system needed to be replaced as its technology was obsolete. Their wastewater analysis revealed levels of BOD, COD, total suspended solids, ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorous. A treatment system was designed to combat their specific contaminants and is to be installed by a qualified EPC contractor. It included equalization and primary treatment for suspended solids removal and reduction of BOD and COD, a secondary treatment for organic waste with an Mbio MBBR process, and finished with tertiary polishing filtration and UV light disinfection. The resulting treated effluent will meet all applicable reuse water standards for non potable reuse or sustainable discharge to a surface river source.

Are you curious about how GWT could aid your water treatment application with the integration of tertiary UV light disinfection? Contact the water treatment experts at Genesis Water Technologies, Inc. at 1-877-267-3699 or reach out to us via email at customersupport@genesiswatertech.com to discuss your specific application.