beer selection brewery beer wastewater treatment

Brewery and Distillery Wastewaters

Water reuse and treatment solutions for beverage industries

Water consumption and wastewater disposal are critical concerns for modern breweries and distilleries, both large and small. Fortunately, there are cost-effective and resilient solutions available, promoting water reuse and allowing for safe wastewater disposal. 

Wastewater Challenges

Whether industrial or craft-scale, breweries and distilleries use water more efficiently and treat it to higher standards than ever before, all while continuing to create quality beers and spirits for consumers. However, challenges remain, driven by new sustainability goals, more strict regulations, and increasing costs of water procurement.

 

Wastewaters are generated from processing or from washing. Challenges that prevent discharge or reuse in these industries’ wastewaters include pH, total dissolved solids (TDS) total suspended solids (TSS), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), grease/fats and other organics (e.g. sugars, alcohol, proteins, yeast).

brewery beer bottles wastewater treatment
distillery copper distillation

Need a TDS or Organics Solution? 

Many brewers and distillers use reverse osmosis (RO) to treat for discharge or reuse. RO rejects TDS and most organics. EDR is an option if only TDS removal is required. EDR and RO both produce freshwater and lower the volume of waste residuals. If water rates or disposal costs are a concern, you may benefit from enhancing system recovery: making more freshwater and less waste volume.

 

We offer high recovery and ion selective EDR systems that prevent scaling ions from entering brine residuals, enabling much higher recoveries. We also take RO system recoveries to the next level while maintaining performance, cost-effectiveness, and longevity.

Saltworks’ RO Solutions

Enhance your RO recovery with our core RO product lines:

  • XtremeUF ceramic ultrafiltration (UF) removes organics and particulate and self-cleans to manage fouling risk
  • Our XtremeRO systems are designed to treat challenging waters at high recoveries suitable for a wide range of wastewaters
  • ScaleSense measures scaling ions in real-time to dynamically control recovery while protecting membrane health
  • BrineRefine targets ions of concern for removal to enable significant recovery boosts on scaling RO brines.
  • After membrane system recovery has been optimized, our SaltMaker family evaporator-crystallizers can help you to achieve minimal (MLD) or zero liquid discharge (ZLD) with waste heat driven options available.
XtremeRO plant RO vessels
brewery steel kettles saltworks wastewater treatment

Need a Solution?

We know that no two wastewaters are alike and that there is no silver bullet for water. We can augment your existing process with ‘bolt-on’ solutions or design and build a new plant fitted to your needs.

 

Every case is different and we like getting into the details. Talk to one of our technical leaders today to learn more about solutions for brewery and distillery wastewaters. We can help you by assessing your options and determining the most cost-effective disposal method.

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