Wastewater Treatment for Textile Manufacturers

The textile industry is one of the largest consumers of water in the world, producing 4.6 billion tons of wastewater each year. That vast quantity of water – saturated with chemicals, dyes, and solids – presents a significant threat to local waterways and a major cost for textile manufacturers.

Treating wastewater from textile production is essential for environmental protection, water conservation, and regulatory compliance, which is why countries such as China and India, two of the world’s biggest textiles producers, are strengthening regulations on manufacturers. Wastewater treatment also allows for water recovery and reuse, reducing the strain on freshwater resources. However, it can be an energy intensive process and create an additional cost burden on manufacturers. Textile effluents can be especially toxic and difficult to clean.

Membrane technology, in conjunction with energy recovery devices (ERDs), can vastly reduce the energy consumption and costs required to treat wastewater in comparison with traditional methods.

• Energy Efficiency: Membrane-based wastewater treatment is far more energy efficient than traditional thermal processes, particularly when paired with Energy Recovery devices, resulting in significant OPEX savings.
• Reduced Footprint: Membrane systems are more compact and more flexible to design and install than thermal systems.
• Water Reuse: Membrane systems have a higher rate of water recovery, allowing for more of the resulting freshwater to be re-used and reduce water intake.
• Circular Economy: salts, dyes and other components can be recovered from the wastewater and reused in the upstream process thereby reducing raw material costs and helping to offset some treatment costs.

Reverse Osmosis and Energy Recovery Devices

Our line of energy recovery devices can significantly compound these benefits at a wide range of pressures. Our core PX^® Pressure Exchanger^®, its ultra high-pressure counterparts the PX U Series, and low pressure PXs work by harnessing pressure as the brine leaves the system and recirculating the energy, maximizing system efficiency. Systems using the PX are able to reduce energy consumption by as much as 60%, and significantly reduce the size of other system components.

Energy Recovery’s line of low, high, and ultra high-pressure solutions can dramatically reduce the energy costs, consumption, and emissions of membrane-based systems, delivering significant OPEX savings as well as CAPEX savings by minimizing the need for other system components. Our devices cover a wide range of pressures and flow rates to accommodate any size plant.

The PX has a simple design with just one moving part and no controls or electronics to boost reliability, making them easy to install and scale. They require no scheduled maintenance to maximize facility uptime and are effective under a wide range of operating conditions, providing efficiency and savings even as flow rate, pressure, or salinity levels change.