Pharmaceutical factory wastewater treatment equipment

1、 Overview of Pharmaceutical Wastewater

In recent years, with the rapid development of the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical wastewater has become one of the serious sources of pollution. Pharmaceutical wastewater has complex components, multiple types and high concentrations of organic pollutants, high and fluctuating COD and BOD values, significant differences in BOD/COD values, high concentrations of suspended solids and NH3-N, deep color, and contains difficult to biodegrade and toxic substances. It is one of the more difficult industrial wastewater to treat.

2、 Source and classification of pharmaceutical wastewater

The pharmaceutical industry's pollutant emission standard system consists of six sub standards, namely fermentation, chemical synthesis, extraction, traditional Chinese medicine, biotechnology, and mixed formulations.

1. Fermentation pharmaceutical wastewater comes from processes such as fermentation, filtration, extraction crystallization, refining, and refinement. This type of wastewater has complex composition, imbalanced carbon nitrogen ratio, poor biodegradability, and contains a large amount of biochemical inhibitors such as sulfates, drug potency, and their degradation products.

Chemical synthesis pharmaceutical wastewater refers to the wastewater generated during the production of drugs and pharmaceutical intermediates using chemical synthesis methods. The quality and quantity of wastewater vary greatly, the pH changes greatly, the types of pollutants are diverse, the composition is complex, the biodegradability is poor, and it contains difficult to degrade substances and antibiotics with antibacterial effects. It is toxic and has high color.

2. Extracting pharmaceutical wastewater includes residual filtrate, waste mother liquor, and solvent recovery residue after extracting drugs from the mother liquor. The composition of wastewater is complex, with significant changes in water quality and quantity, and a wide range of pH fluctuations.

3. Traditional Chinese medicine wastewater is generated during the processes of washing, boiling, washing, and preparing medicinal materials in the production workshop. This type of wastewater has a high content of organic pollutants, complex composition, difficult to precipitate, high color, good biodegradability, and significant changes in water quality and quantity.

4. Bioengineering pharmaceutical wastewater refers to the wastewater generated from the cultivation or extraction of vaccine plasma, serum antibiotics, insulin, and gastric enzymes from animal organs. The composition of wastewater is complex, with high COD and SS content, significant changes in water quality, and the presence of antibiotics that are difficult to biodegrade and have antibacterial effects.

5. The mixed formulation pharmaceutical wastewater comes from the cleaning wastewater generated during bottle washing, production equipment flushing water, and factory floor flushing water. This type of wastewater has a relatively simple water quality and belongs to low to medium content organic wastewater.

3、 Characteristics of pharmaceutical wastewater quality

The main characteristics of pharmaceutical wastewater quality are as follows: ① There are multiple drainage points, and high and low concentration wastewater are discharged separately, which is conducive to the separation of clean and polluted water; ② Intermittent discharge of high concentration wastewater requires large collection and regulation devices; ③ High concentration of pollutants; ④ Low carbon to nitrogen ratio is not conducive to improving the load and efficiency of wastewater biological treatment; ⑤ High nitrogen content affects COD removal; ⑥ The concentration of sulfates is generally high, which poses difficulties for anaerobic treatment of wastewater; ⑦ Wastewater contains substances that are difficult for microorganisms to degrade, and even have inhibitory effects on microorganisms; ⑧ Water generally has a higher chromaticity.

Antibiotic wastewater has high chromaticity, contains various difficult to degrade and biologically toxic substances, and the residual antibiotics in the wastewater can have potential environmental impacts. The production wastewater of traditional Chinese patent medicines and simple preparations contains a large amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, with COD up to 8000~9000mg/L and BOD up to 2500~3000mg/L. The quality and quantity of wastewater vary greatly. The composition of synthetic drug production wastewater is complex, with high concentrations of organic pollutants and a large amount of toxic and harmful substances, which have a significant inhibitory effect on biological activity and are difficult to treat. The washing water and flushing wastewater in the production process of various preparations have significantly reduced concentrations of toxic and harmful organic compounds compared to other wastewater in the pharmaceutical process, with lower toxicity and ease of treatment. They can be treated together with other production wastewater.

4、 The hazards of pharmaceutical wastewater

Untreated or untreated pharmaceutical wastewater that does not meet discharge standards and enters the environment directly can cause serious harm. The content of recalcitrant organic compounds in pharmaceutical wastewater is high, and most of them have strong toxicity and "three causative" effects. After these recalcitrant pollutants are discharged into the water, they remain in the water for a long time and accumulate and enrich through the food chain, ultimately entering the human body and causing toxicity. When the organic matter content is too high and the rate of oxygen consumption by biological oxidation and decomposition exceeds the rate of reoxygenation, it will cause oxygen deficiency in the water, resulting in the death of aerobic aquatic organisms in the water. Anaerobic microorganisms will digest and produce substances such as methane and hydrogen sulfide, further inhibiting aquatic organisms and making the water odorous.

5、 Pharmaceutical wastewater treatment process

The difficulty in treating pharmaceutical wastewater lies in the fact that certain components in the wastewater may inhibit the growth of microorganisms, further reducing the biodegradability of the wastewater and causing the effluent to not meet discharge standards. Therefore, improving biodegradability is the primary issue faced in the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater. At present, the treatment methods for pharmaceutical wastewater mainly include physical and chemical methods, chemical methods, biochemical methods, and combined treatment processes.

1. Physical and chemical methods can be used as pretreatment methods to improve the biodegradability of wastewater, and can also be used as advanced treatment methods to ensure that the effluent meets discharge standards. The main physical and chemical treatment methods include coagulation, adsorption, air flotation, ion exchange, and membrane separation.

2. Chemical method is a traditional method for wastewater treatment equipment, currently commonly used in oxidation, electrolysis, and advanced oxidation methods.

3. In the process of pharmaceutical wastewater treatment using biochemical methods, the use of aerobic or anaerobic biological treatment methods alone often cannot achieve the expected treatment effect. Therefore, a combination of multiple methods is commonly used to achieve discharge standards.