: As a crucial supporting industry for manufacturing, the electroplating industry generates wastewater containing heavy metals, suspended solids, and acidic/alkaline substances. This wastewater is notoriously difficult to treat. With increasingly stringent environmental regulations, traditional sedimentation processes often suffer from fluctuating effluent quality, incomplete removal of suspended solids, and complex maintenance, making it difficult to meet long-term, stable compliance requirements.
This case study leverages the superior separation performance and corrosion resistance of silicon carbide ceramic membranes to address the challenges of heavy metal and suspended solids removal from electroplating wastewater. It achieves stable wastewater treatment that meets standards, providing a replicable and scalable technical reference for similar electroplating wastewater treatment projects.
: Jianmo Technology - Silicon Carbide Tubular Membrane
: Sludge runoff in the front-end sedimentation tank, residual suspended solids, fluctuations in effluent heavy metal levels, and cumbersome operation and maintenance of traditional processes
: The electroplating company's original wastewater treatment system was a conventional two-stage reaction sedimentation process with chemical dosing. While the treated heavy metal levels were close to meeting standards, the secondary sedimentation tank was prone to sludge runoff and incomplete settling of suspended solids, leading to intermittent exceedances in effluent turbidity and total heavy metals, placing significant environmental pressure on the company. Therefore, the project optimized the process by adding a Jianmo Technology silicon carbide ceramic membrane system downstream of the secondary sedimentation tank as a final-end protection unit. This system precisely intercepts residual suspended solids and heavy metal flocs, strengthening the compliance defense line and ensuring stable effluent compliance around the clock, thus mitigating environmental risks.
This project employs a "front-end physicochemical reaction sedimentation + silicon carbide ceramic membrane filtration" method to remove heavy metal pollutants from wastewater.
- Electroplating wastewater first undergoes front-end physicochemical precipitation treatment to remove most heavy metals and reduce the pollution load. The supernatant then enters the ceramic membrane system.
- Wastewater is pumped into a silicon carbide tubular membrane, where the nanoscale pores trap remaining suspended solids and heavy metal flocs. The treated water is directly discharged in compliance with standards or reused.
- The membrane system concentrate and backwash wastewater are returned to the front-end sedimentation system for retreatment before entering the membrane filtration system, achieving closed-loop operation and improving wastewater recovery rate.
In this process, the Jianmo Technology silicon carbide ceramic membrane plays a crucial role, ensuring stable effluent recovery rate and consistently compliant effluent quality even with sludge loss from the sedimentation tank.
1. High Separation Precision and Excellent Effluent Quality: Nanoscale separation pore size provides separation precision far exceeding traditional filtration processes. It achieves high retention rates for suspended solids and heavy metal flocs, resulting in effluent with turbidity and TSS levels meeting standards, and clear water quality that satisfies electroplating wastewater discharge requirements.
2. Strong Anti-fouling Performance and Convenient Maintenance: Pure silicon carbide material exhibits good hydrophilicity, acid and alkali resistance, and strong anti-fouling capabilities, making it suitable for complex electroplating wastewater qualities. It is unaffected by influent fluctuations or sludge runoff from sedimentation tanks, eliminating the need for frequent parameter adjustments. The membrane modules are easy to clean and restore, making daily maintenance simple and convenient.
3. Streamlined process and small footprint: It can replace traditional multi-stage filtration units, eliminating redundant steps, shortening the process chain, increasing equipment integration, reducing footprint, and shortening the modification cycle for quick results;
4. Long-lasting and durable, high cost-effectiveness throughout its entire life cycle: Silicon carbide ceramic membranes have high mechanical strength, strong corrosion resistance, and a long service life. They can operate stably for extended periods, have strong anti-fouling properties, require less cleaning frequency and less chemical dosage, resulting in lower overall life-cycle maintenance costs and outstanding cost-effectiveness.
[On-site photos]
