Pollution Prevention: Bridging Troubled Water: The Screen Printing Industry
Screen printing, the process that creates T-shirt art and signage, can produce waste streams that are harmful to water quality. In the past, many solvents used to clean and reclaim screens were simply washed down the drain. But by using ultra viol...
Biological Treatment Technologies: Phytoremediation
Traditional bioremediation uses microbes to degrade organic substances. However, toxic metals are already in an elemental form, and cannot be degraded further. Phytoremediation, a fascinating extension of bioremediation, uses certain green plants ...
Pollution Prevention: Bridging Troubled Water: Pulp and Paper Industry Regulations
The transformation of wood or other raw materials into pulp through chemical or mechanical processes is a water intensive process that creates large residues of waste materials. However, prior to the 1970's, the pulp and paper industry was largely u...
Biological Treatment Technologies: Co-Metabolism
While traditional bioremediation can degrade most organic elements, a newer process called co-metabolism is required for certain chemical contaminants, such as synthetic organics, pesticides and detergents. The key to successful co-metabolism is ch...
Pollution Prevention: Clearing the Air: Industrial Ecology and Pollution Prevention
In the years following the first Earth Day and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, regulatory goals focused on "end-of-pipe" solutions to capture and treat waste before it contaminated the environment, but did little to address...
Pollution Prevention: Bridging Troubled Water: Pollution Prevention: Past, Present and Future
In terms of measurable impact and effectiveness, the federal Clean Water Act has been the most successful piece of environmental legislation in U.S. history. For companies thinking of investing in pollution prevention, the key is in balancing the c...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Filtration
Filtration is one of the most common techniques for physical separation, and is used to remove solids from both gaseous and liquid streams. It is frequently used in the treatment of waste water.
Physical Treatment Technologies: Vapor Pressure: Evaporation Ponds, Air Stripping and Distillation
The physical property known as vapor pressure is the tendency of a material, at a given temperature, to turn into a gas. Substances with a higher vapor pressure will change into a gas more quickly than substances with a lower vapor pressure. These...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Microfiltration and Reverse Osmosis
Microfiltration and reverse osmosis are barrier filters that have the smallest pore sizes utilized. These techniques are heavily dependant on supplementary pressure to force the waste stream across the barrier. After the larger particles have been...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Adsorption
Adsorption is a process that may be considered as either a chemical or a physical treatment method. The forces that hold the adsorbed substance to the surface of an adsorbing material are chemical, but the material itself can be recovered in its or...