The Paper Mill located in Central Italy makes use of low quality recycled paper from urban collection for its production.
In 2010 the Paper Mill was experiencing a consistent substantial loss of raw material from their production processes. This loss increased the loading to their wastewater treatment process, degrading effluent water quality and increasing the amount of sludge to be disposed.
The Paper Mill purchased a fine filtration system composed of two Conoscreen® Microfilters model CS 1606 CE, in order to recover the raw material that would have otherwise been lost, as well as reduce the loading to the treatment plant and consequent sludge disposal cost.
The total flow rate treated by the Q = 500 m3/h (2,201 US gpm).
The two Conoscreen® Microfilters remove~63% of TSS in the waste stream, thanks to their novel Dynamic Tangential Filtration process and recover an average of 43.8 metric tons/day of fiber with a concentration of 9.6%.
This material recovery leads to two important economic advantages:
1. LESS SLUDGE DISPOSAL
- Lower sludge production 11.68 metric tons/day
- Disposal cost $43.2 US/metric ton
- Saving $504.6 US/day
2. RAW MATERIAL RECOVERY (PAPER PULP)
- Paper paste recovery – Lower consumption of raw material (waste pulp)
- Recovery 4.63 metric tons/day dry weight
- Low quality waste paper price $60 US/metric tons
- Saving $277.8 US/day
For a total daily saving of about 782.4 U$D/day.
The Paper Mill has invested $252,000 US for the purchase of two Conoscreen® Microfilters CS 1606 CE.
Considering one working year of 300 days, the amortization time based on the above savings vs the investment cost equates to an ROI of <14 months.
