The Paper Mill located in Northern Italy makes use of selected waste paper from paper from cardboard box factories for its production.
In 2004 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 = 600 m3/h (2,642 US gpm).
The two Conoscreen® Microfilters remove~68% of TSS in the waste stream, thanks to their novel Dynamic Tangential Filtration process and recover an average of 64.8 metric tons/day of fiber with a concentration of 8%.
This material recovery leads to two important economic advantages:
1. LESS SLUDGE DISPOSAL
- Lower sludge production 14.4 metric tons/day
- Disposal cost $43.2 US/metric ton
- Saving $622.1 US/day
2. RAW MATERIAL RECOVERY (PAPER PULP)
- Paper pulp recovery – Lower consumption of raw material (selected waste paper)
- Recovery 5.7 metric tons/day dry weight
- Low quality waste paper price $60 US/metric tons
- Saving $342 US/day
For a total daily saving of about 964.1 €/day.
The Paper Mill has invested $216,000 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 <10 months.
