Industrial pollution of water - Characterization, classification, measurement

The history of industrial development has been built in partnership with water. Factories are always located near water (rivers, canals, or the sea) for various reasons:

• the convenience of transporting raw materials and finished products;

• the possibility of using water to perform a wide variety of industrial tasks: the entire history of industrial technology is linked to the use of water;

• facilities for the disposal of by-products or waste generated during manufacturing operations.

Water has an exceptional combination of physical and chemical properties; it can act as a solvent, a heat transfer fluid, or simply an easy-to-handle liquid. These properties explain why water is involved in all major industrial activities; factories use water repeatedly throughout the successive stages of the manufacturing process.

In most manufacturing techniques and processes, water comes into contact with mineral or organic raw materials. It dissolves them partially or even completely, or carries them away in the form of colloidal suspensions.

Using water means accepting that it will be polluted... Indeed, all industrial activity generates polluting waste that contains by-products and raw material losses that cannot be recovered or recycled.

In this case, we will proceed to:

• characterizing industrial waste pollution and studying its harmfulness and effects on the natural environment;

• a summary inventory of industrial pollution with classification tests;

• quantitative assessment of industrial pollution, because the fight against industrial pollution necessarily involves, in the initial stage, improving knowledge, measurement, and control of polluting production.

Readers may also refer to the article Industrial water pollution. Strategy and methodology.