Development of an eco-friendly mobile plant for car wash wastewater recovery

Abstract

The global increase in the number of vehicles has a negative impact on the sustainable development due to the increased energy consumption, noise, and air pollution, as well as the increased water consumption used for car wash. The car wash is one of the main after-sale services in the automobile sector. If car wash wastewater (CWW) could be reused, fresh water customarily used in car washing could be preserved. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to implement “on-site” wastewater treatment systems (i.e. at car wash stations). In this research, a novel pilot plant is developed for „on site“ treatment of CWW. This pilot plant presents combined methods. It consists of three innovative modules: a multipurpose reactor (for coagulation/flotation, aeration/oxidation), deep bed filter (for filtration), and a two-stage bed coalescer (for coalescence filtration). In all these units packing materials are very light (expanded polystyrene (EPS) and polyurethane (PU)) and therefore energy consumption is significantly low. The pilot plant has a simple and light construction, so that it can be easily moved. It has shown very high COD reduction efficiency as well as removal efficiencies of suspended solids, and oil/grease, thus exhibiting high potentials for water recovery at car wash stations.

Keywords

• car wash station
• on-site wastewater treatment
• new modular technology
• reclaimed water
• environmental protection