Physico-chemical treatment of insoluble pollution

Depending on the type(s) of production, industrial activities generate a wide variety of continuous or discontinuous pollutant discharges.

As opposed to domestic wastewater, the physico-chemical characteristics of these discharges are highly variable, and can fluctuate significantly from one day to the next, from one week to the next, and even seasonally for certain production processes.

These are mixtures of heterogeneous composition, containing organic and inorganic materials in an insoluble or dissolved state, some of which may be toxic to a greater or lesser degree.

Given the heterogeneous composition of industrial effluent, the treatment of industrial effluent will always require the design of a treatment chain ensuring the elimination – of the various pollutants contained in industrial wastewater (IWW), in successive stages, depending on the objectives set for the quality of the treated water –.

First of all, we carry out treatments to eliminate insoluble pollution, made up of more or less finely dispersed solid particles and water-immiscible liquid substances (oils, hydrocarbons) in a free and/or more or less emulsified state.

This is the purpose of physico-chemical treatments, which are often only one stage in the industrial waste treatment chain.

In this article, we proceed as follows:

• an inventory and summary of the general principles of the various physico-chemical treatment methods applicable to industrial effluents;

• a description of treatment technologies for the various processes used to eliminate insoluble pollution, including sizing criteria, achievable performance levels and industrial applications.

The complete study of the subject includes the articles :

• G 1270 - Physico-chemical treatment of insoluble pollution (this article) ;

• G 1271 - Physico-chemical treatment of soluble pollution.