Evaporation in liquid effluent treatment

Evaporation plays an important role in the treatment of liquid effluents. It is mainly used for the concentration of industrial effluents, because although it is technically possible to produce condensate by evaporation from domestic wastewater that can be used as drinking water, this option is not economically viable. In the vast majority of installations, evaporation is combined with other techniques such as decantation, filtration, dewatering, drying and cementing, among others. The use of membranes is now a common choice for the volume reduction of many effluents with low initial concentrations. This reduces evaporator load and, consequently, investment and operating costs. But evaporation is still essential to obtain highly concentrated solutions and, in some cases, to recover marketable products and/or achieve zero liquid discharge.