Menu

Improving Sustainable Wastewater Best Practices

As populations grow, waste water treatment plant operations must manage increased outputs. Our job is to control or lower total costs related to daily permit effluent limits, solids generation, solids handling and plant labor. Simply put, how can the transport of tons of sediment to landfills across America be minimized and carried out more expeditiously? How can the quality of river effluent be improved? How can the contribution of residuals be lowered?

To develop a highly expedient clarification system for a partner, GEO undertook a six-month system analysis, testing GEO formulations against onsite products of ferric sulfate and polymers currently in use. The system being tested had multiple 10,000+ gallon-per-minute clarifiers serving varying wastewater streams. The goal was simple: to identify the right combination of products to separate the solids from the wastewater streams at minimal cost so that the least amount of solids would go to the onsite landfill operation. The first goal was to model the system with a rigorous mixing energy profile that was currently inaccurate. The second part of the project evaluated additives such as aluminum, iron, polymers and others that would optimize settling rates, TSS (Total Suspended Solids) at the outfall, and a host of metals that had effluent limits. The third goal was to effectively treat the residuals in the three onsite presses. During the test period, myriad product combinations were evaluated with at least nine variables as part of the process, checking flow rate and solids characteristics, among other factors.  The final solution cut the shipments of coagulants by 60% and solids delivered up to the landfill dropped by 70%. The major cost savings were in trucking, labor and operations.  Decreasing costs over the road and in the ground was achieved: GEO saved the customer more than $1.2MM per year.  The practice of system optimization by GEO is now being carried out to other partners. Solutions. That is our specialty.

Contact Information


Scot Lang
Sr. Vice President
Water Treatment Chemicals Division
GEO Specialty Chemicals, Inc.
9213 Arch Street Pike
Little Rock, AR 72206
P: 800-453-2586
P: 618-971-6264 
Email: Scot.lang@geosc.com