Projects: Caster Water Filter

A west coast aluminum producer uses the Deep Bed Filter (HDBF) to remove PCBs and suspended solids from non contact caster water, which comes from the ground water.

The producer uses the ground water, which contains PCBs, for use as cooling water. The water does not come into contact with their process.

To discharge the water to the river, it must meet EPA specified PCB levels for discharge into fish bearing streams. The deep bed filter removes the PCBs in water to meet this discharge requirement and is the only removal system in the process.

The standard EPA recommended equipment for PCB removal from water is to use sand filtration followed by carbon columns. 

The end user pilot tested various pieces of equipment and it was determined that the HDBF could meet the removal requirement on a continuous basis, by itself, in a single step. This eliminated the need for granular activated carbon filters, which have a large operation cost associated to regeneration.

This PCB filter installation was originally quoted with vertical vessel deep bed filters. 

Using the vertical vessel configuration, our competition quoted 9 filtration units. The horizontal filter vessel orientation allowed Filtra-Systems Company to provide (3) model FDB-340P for the entire flow rate, which significantly reduced capital and installation cost.