When one of the world’s leading manufacturers
of complex lightweight structures and components in the aerospace industry engaged Burlington-based Kontek Process Water Management to design a solution for source water purification and wastewater recovery and treatment, there was, as expected, a series of requirements and the consequential challenges that come along with a greenfield project.

For the largest planned anodizing and titanium etch facility that was built in the EU, the source water purification had to be sub one micro-siemen conductivity, and a wastewater treatment and recovery system had to be designed for both processes to meet a corporate sustainability mandate that had a minimum requirement of 65 percent recovery of all wastewaters produced by the processes in the facility. Glen Russell, owner of Kontek, says, “The project also required us to process discharge wastewater to stringent EU limits with regards to heavy metals, COD/BOD, and sulphate.  The EU regulations for wastewater and sulphate discharge are far more stringent than Canada and the US. Discharge limits for heavy metals are about 75 percent lower, and BOD/COD regulations for discharge are 50 to 85 percent lower than in North America.”

“The data had to be +/- 20 per cent on the projections for the systems to operate as designed,” says Russell. “And Kontek builds in an additional 25 per cent capacity into our designs to ensure and exceed performance and account for variations in the wastewater produced.” The major wastewater constituents of concern were aluminum, titanium, fluoride, sulphate, organic dyes, and BOD/COD, which are typical contaminants for anodizing world-wide. But given the jurisdiction that planned project was in, the water had to meet much more stringent discharge limits. “The technology for clarification of the wastewater to be discharged required the suspended solids removal efficiency of a microfiltration system, as a conventional gravitational clarifier system would not guarantee the water would meet the quality required for recovery or consistently meet the discharge limits without further polishing technologies downstream,” says Russell. “Some concentrated wastes had to be evaporated and crystallized rather than treated and discharged (ZLD) due to high contamination levels. Through the use of organic absorbents (RSA) from our Moonstone division we had the capabilities to reduce the BOD/COD levels in the discharged wastewater from certain wastewater streams.”

Kontek was awarded the contract for the design, engineering, manufacture, and supply for a completely integrated solution for the wastewater treatment, wastewater recovery, and source water purification requirements for the facility. It supplied a full installation package including 3D drawings and the installation of Kontek’s systems was contracted out to others by the client.

The Covid pandemic also disrupted all aspects of the project timeline in combination with customer site preparation delays. Kontek pivoted to remote commissioning and training using Kontek IntelliKON remote access systems and virtual meetings for communication purposes. “Pivoting was a major but necessary undertaking, but the team here and the customer overseas adapted quite fast, and it turned out to be very efficient.  For our North American customers it has provided a significant cost reduction benefit for after sales assistance and troubleshooting as Kontek can access the system, adjust control setpoints, access and diagnose operational data and make changes remotely, thus avoiding service reps traveling to site in most cases,” says Russell.

• Source Water Purification: ROKon Reverse Osmosis: organic/chlorination removal and hardwater treatment; Reverse Osmosis water purification, and Ion Exchange DI water polishing technology. Deionized water collection and distribution systems.
• Point-of-Source Wastewater Recovery: ReKon Ion Exchange Cation and Anion wastewater recovery technology.
• Combined high TDS Wastewater Treatment: Conventional wastewater treatment coupled with reactors and pH/ORP/instrumentation, and chemical delivery; MemKon Microfiltration suspended solids removal/polishing technology; Filter press dewatering, sludge dehydration and handling.
• Treated Wastewater Recovery: ROKon Wastewater Recovery RO Systems: organic/chlorination removal and hardwater treatment; Reverse Osmosis water purification and Ion Exchange DI water polishing technology. Deionized water collection and distribution systems.
• Organic Wastewater Treatment: Moonstone Organo-RSA chemical treatment and solids separation.
• Systems Control Center featuring Kontek IntelliKon PLC/HMI programming.

“We designed and integrated several of our technologies into a complete spigot-to-drain process water management system allowing the client to  recover in excess of 75 percent of all process wastewater from the facility, and meet stringent discharge criteria,” says Russell.

“We integrated the control of the systems into a common platform that would allow the client and Kontek to remotely monitor, adjust, and control the various technologies to ensure seamless operation, optimize the integrated systems performance, and minimize water and chemical usage. Through the use of Kontek’s IntelliKon Control Centers, the client and Kontek have the ability to log into the systems through the internet, and download and review data, manipulate settings, add programming, troubleshoot processes, and operate the system in real time."

According to Kontek, the customer has been operating the water and wastewater recovery systems successfully for over two years now. And the sub one micro-siemen DI water production, the facilities’ water utilization, the wastewater recovery, and the discharge results of treated wastewater have far exceeded the clients’ objectives. Since this project, Kontek was designated as a technology partner for the aerospace company’s environmental wastewater and raw water treatment, recovery, and purifications requirements, and as a result several other projects have been completed or are in progress.