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Pharmaceutical wastewater contains about 99.99% water and 0.01% other substances in the form of dissolved solids. Typically, pharmaceutical wastewater contains pharmaceutical drugs (APIs and excipients) from manufacturing, chemicals and solvents from quality control, and oils and greases from utilities and maintenance.
Wastewater needs to be treated and purified to a recommended level because pharmaceutical wastewater pollutants are major sources of water pollution.
Pharmaceutical wastewater is treated in the following manner
Primary Treatment: The wastewater passes through the bar screen chamber, where a fine bar screen is provided to remove floating particles from the wastewater. Water is collected in collection tanks.
Aeration: Now the collected water is aerated by blowing air for 24 hours through air blower. After aeration, the water is transferred to the neutralization tank.
Neutralization: The pH of the wastewater in the neutralization tank is adjusted between 6 and 7 by adding aluminum bisulfate or lime solution. If the waste is acidic, add lime solution (2.0 kg of lime in 100 liters of water) and if the waste is basic, add aluminum bisulphate solution (2.0 kg of aluminum in 100 liters of water) to maintain the pH. Transfer waste to disposal tank.
Flocculation and Coagulation: Flocculating agents are added to the flocculate to flocculate the suspended material. Alum is widely used as a flocculating agent in water treatment plants. The alum solution is added to the mixture continuously by aeration. Polyelectrolyte solution is also added to coagulate suspended materials in the form of sludge at the bottom of the tank. The concentration of both solutions depends on the suspended solids in the effluent. The waste is transferred to the septic tank.
Biological Degradation: Nutrients are added to the septic tank for proper growth of bacteria that degrade the organic matter in the effluent. Urea and diammonium phosphate solutions are added and transferred to aerated and settling tanks for 24 hours. The sludge is separated from the settling tank and the water is filtered through an activated carbon filter.
Filtration: The treated waste is then passed through an activated carbon filter to remove coloring matter and find clean water.
The treated water is then analyzed for the required quality. Following are the specifications of treated wastewater that can be used for irrigation.
