Lowering Energy Costs for Zero Liquid Discharge at Ranipet Tannery Effluent Treatment Company (Ranitec)

Ranipet is an industrial town in Tamil Nadu, India, where multiple tannery manufacturing plants operate, processing hides into finished leather. To avoid releasing toxic wastewater into the environment and comply with local discharge regulations, the Ranitec Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) was built to direct effluent from 92 tanneries. One of the country’s largest effluent treatment plants for tannery wastewater, the CETP was designed with multistage reverse osmosis (RO) systems to achieve zero liquid discharge (ZLD). This effectively treats the effluent and delivers clean water back to the tanneries for reuse in their tanning process. Because reverse osmosis is highly energy-intensive, the plant needed a solution to reduce the energy consumption of implementing ZLD.