Designing waste water treatment plant for Medipharm pharmaceutical industries (EA) limited.

Abstract

The study was carried out at Medipharm Industries East Africa (EA) to design a waste water treatment plant (WWTP). Medipharm being a pharmaceutical industry requires clean and safe water in the manufacturing processes and doing other industrial activities hence a need to design a WWTP to supply sufficient water. Samples of waste water from Medipharm pharmaceutical industries (EA) were collected and analyzed experimentally to determine Potential of Hydrogen (PH), turbidity, color, total dissolved solids, Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and others. These were done to know how much their waste is contaminated and hence design the best method for waste water treatment for the plant. After sample analysis of the waste water, the best method identified was a combination of both chemical and biological processes. Combination of these two methods generate a clear effluent with residual COD) and BOD of 640 and 125 mg/L corresponding to 95.2 and 91% respectively. Aerobic biological treatment using feed batch operation permits COD removal rate of 800mg/L and average growth yield of 0.4% of biomass/g COD. The methods identified for the waste water treatment processes were flocculation, coagulation, aeration, disinfection, clarification and filtration. The other part of the project was to develop the block diagram (Figure 2), the process flow diagram (SFigure 1), the material and energy balance (Figure 3), , design calculation and sizing some major equipment used in the plant that cover a capacity of 30,000m3/day. After carrying critical economic evaluation considering other factors like cost of equipment, capital available, location of the plant, labor, capacity of the plant and others in mind the overall process was viable because the cost of operation will be reduced and so does the local community receive treated water from the designed plant.