Sainsbury’s slashes waste water from cooling towers

Waterwise Technology, cooling tower, water treatment
Massive reductions in cooling-tower waste water at a Sainsbury’s distribution depot are being achieved using Oasis cooling-water recycling units from Waterwise Technology.

The treatment and re-use of waste water from cooling towers at Sainsbury’s new distribution centre in Dartford is expected to reduce bleed-off water by 75%. Oasis recycling units from Waterwise Technology are being used to recycle cooling water.

A typical cooling tower rejecting 5 MW of heat operating at full load discharges about 3.6 m3/h as waste water. At an average load of 30%, the bleed off will be 1.08 m3/h. Based on Thames Water’s charges for metered premises of 168.9 p/m3, the cost is £15 976 a year.

Reducing bleed-off by 75% achieves a saving of £11 980 a year in water and effluent costs.

The annual operating cost of an Oasis unit is less than £2000, and they achieve a payback in less than two years.

The system uses a combination of filtration, ion exchange and reverse osmosis to purify bleed-off water from cooling towers and enable it to be used as fresh make-up water. The effectiveness of the process is such that the quality of the recycled water is as good as or, in most cases, better than water from the mains supply.

For more information on this story, click here: July 2011, 125
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