INNOWATECH - Innovative and Integrated Technologies for the Treatment of Industrial Wastewater.

Industrial wastewater streams have often very different characteristics from domestic sewage, such as high salinity, significant toxicity due to different compounds, large variabilities in composition, pH, temperature etc. These differences make it very difficult to successfully treat many industrial effluents in conventional (domestic) wastewater treatment plants. However, the alternative approach typically requires significantly more complex treatment trains with associated higher capital and operating costs, increased operator skill levels and often significant environmental impacts. Optimal solutions to tackle these challenging waste streams need to look at both the specific local situation in each industrial facility and at industry-wide approaches to better manage the wastewater pollutants. At both scales, the characterisation and minimisation of the key pollutant sources needs to be prioritised to enablethe identification of effective up-front solutions such as separation of high-strength streams or reduction/elimination of problematic compounds in the production process. Nevertheless, this rarely eliminates the need for selective and targeted treatment solutions in most industries. In many cases, the provision of specific source control actions and pre-treatment processes can significantly improve the biodegradability of the remaining pollutants. These may include the use of more environmentally benign or biodegradable substances, stream segregation, often in combination with selective removal of key contaminants or partial chemical treatment to increase bio-availability of the remaining compounds. Inthis context, the European Commission, through its Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), co-financed the project "Innovative and integrated technologies for the treatment of industrial wastewater", with the acronym innowatech (www.innowatech.org).