Challenge

After an unexpected fire caused extensive damage to their manufacturing facility, a Southeast Aerospace metal finishing company reached out to Evoqua for help. As part of a larger corporation, some of the aerospace components manufactured at the damaged facility could be temporarily produced at other locations. However, the company needed to return to partial operating status as soon as possible in order to meet customer commitments and retain their local skilled labor force.

As an existing customer of Evoqua at another US location, the customer was familiar with Evoqua’s water treatment capabilities and process evaluations had already been underway before the fire occurred. The aerospace manufacturer requested assistance in designing and installing a comprehensive water and wastewater system to replace their in-house capabilities that were inoperable due to heat and smoke damage.

Solution

Since Evoqua’s engineering and business development team were already involved in a wastewater evaluation process at the customer site, they quickly changed gears to design a turnkey system that would allow the customer to continue manufacturing products while the facility was being rebuilt. Evoqua recommended a temporary wastewater ion exchange (WWIX) resin system to meet the aerospace manufacturer’s needs for recycling wastewater. A service deionization (SDI) system was also provided to treat incoming city water.

Results

With Evoqua’s temporary water and wastewater treatment solution, the aerospace customer was able to continue recycling chrome and other metal-bearing wastewater as had been done prior to the fire. This allowed for a reduced demand for treating incoming city water, with cost savings on both incoming water and sewer costs, and provided the high-quality rinses required for the manufacturing of critical aerospace components.

Off-site regeneration of the WWIX resins at Evoqua’s RCRA facility also provided the customer with an advantage of simple operation and outsourcing of their water and wastewater needs during a critical time of re-building.