A novel user-friendly tool for minimizing water use in processing industry

Abstract

This article proposes a user-friendly tool for investigating water reuse and reduction strategies within the processing industry. The tool is based on a new, simple approach to targeting minimum freshwater systems with single or multiple contaminants. This method can be applied to the processing industry in general and in particular the food industry, which presents significant challenges for water-saving. The investigation of water recovery is suitable for the new design or revamping of the water network of continuous processes. According to the water quality requirement, the options for water reuse are limited. Each operation using water involves an inevitable transfer of pollutants, which increases the concentrations in the water flow. By promoting the reuse options, the freshwater decreases, but the contaminant concentrations increase further. The optimum design targets result from a tradeoff between the maximum water reuse, the maximum possible concentrations of contaminants, and the minimum mass transfer of pollutants involved within each operation. An algorithmic procedure for tradeoffs is developed and implemented in Python software language. One case study is used to demonstrate this targeting method.