Case Studies

Onsite wastewater recycling for a global electronics manufacturer

Background

As part of their global sustainability roadmap, a global electronics manufacturer located in Singapore was looking for ways to reduce their impact on the environment through onsite wastewater recycling. This is their first office in the Asia Pacific region looking to implement this.

Sembcorp’s team of dedicated professionals worked with our customer throughout the entire project life cycle to design a bespoke wastewater recycling plant that will help to reduce total water usage by 17% and set a template for their other manufacturing sites to follow.

Challenges

• Complex wastewater stream

The wastewater from this manufacturing plant is particularly complex with significant and fluctuating pollutant loading. As such, there were a number of technical and O&M uncertainties to resolve.

• Space limitations

The wastewater from this manufacturing plant is particularly complex with significant and fluctuating pollutant loading. As such, there were a number of technical and O&M uncertainties to resolve.

• Pressure to demonstrate economic viability

Space was limited requiring our solution to be compact, space-efficient yet technologically advanced to treat their complex wastewater feed.

Solutions

With our years of experience in wastewater treatment, we came up with a cost-effective Ultrafiltration (UF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) system and worked with our industrial partner to manufacture an innovative UF membrane that can withstand the harsh wastewater quality. The UF membrane enables greater durability and fouling resistance when compared to other commercially available membranes. This translates to minimal system downtime that usually occurs due to frequent backwashing or cleaning.

To tackle space constraints, we leveraged our process and engineering expertise to design a compact plant that was much smaller compared to those offered by other solution providers.

These solutions reduced their operating costs while enabling them to achieve their sustainability goals.

Results

Since its operations began in 2Q2022, the customer is able to save an average of 67,000m3 of NEWater per year, a reduction of 17% in total water usage. As our plant is digitally backed with WaterOS, our intelligent operations management system, we are able to assure our customer of the plant’s efficiency and reliability.

The customer also plans to implement similar water recycling projects across all their other factories in Singapore and Asia Pacific.

Long-term wastewater treatment services for a greenfield plant

Providing solutions to meet regulations

Background

A global pharmaceutical company venturing to set up their first manufacturing plant in Singapore faces multiple challenges due to varying wastewater characteristics and divergent regulations with existing countries of operations. Long-term plans are required to reduce operations and maintenance risks.

Sembcorp’s team of dedicated professionals, together with support from our overseas laboratory, is working with our customer to confirm the design for a bespoke wastewater treatment plant that when completed, will ensure treatability of expected wastewater effluent to meet discharge regulations. As a partner, Sembcorp will also review the wastewater characteristics consistently to ensure cost of wastewater treatment plant is optimised.

Challenges

• Complex wastewater streams with fluctuating quality

The wastewater from this new manufacturing plant is significantly complex due to the business nature. The wastewater is forecasted to vary due to changing product lines. An adaptable and efficient solution is required to ensure that regulations are met without impeding production schedule.

• Unaccustomed with local regulations

The discharge regulations in Singapore are different from customer's existing countries of operations and current wastewater treatment facilities cannot be fully replicated

Solutions

With our years of experience in wastewater treatment both in Singapore and overseas, Sembcorp provided in-depth consulting on the different discharge regulations and foreseeable hurdles that customer would face. Sembcorp proposed an intensive treatability studies to ensure system and wastewater quality consistency. To reduce customer risks, Sembcorp also proposed handling the operations and maintenance of the wastewater treatment plant upon completion to ensure compliance with local regulations on trade effluent discharge.

Wastewater treatment plant digitalisation and upgrading for a global pharmaceutical manufacturer

OPEX reduction through advance technology implementation

Background

Ever-rising costs of wastewater disposal compelled this global pharmaceutical giant to explore alternative ways to treat their wastewater. The customer also needs to ensure business continuity with O&M expertise to operate their wastewater treatment plant.

Sembcorp’s team of dedicated professionals, together with support from our overseas laboratory, is working with our customer to confirm the design for a bespoke wastewater treatment plant that when completed, will ensure treatability of expected wastewater effluent to meet discharge regulations. As a partner, Sembcorp will also review the wastewater characteristics consistently to ensure cost of wastewater treatment plant is optimised.

Challenges

• Difficult to treat wastewater stream

The harsh wastewater is high in TDS and COD in great excess, surpassing PUB Trade Effluent Discharge Limits. Conventional physical and biological processes cannot be used to treat this wastewater stream, so it is sent for off-site incineration.

• Brownfield limitations

As the plant manufacturing processes cannot be stopped, all modifications and system implementations are required to be performed with minimal shutdown period 

• Operations of wastewater treatment plant

Customer is not specialised in wastewater treatment and has difficulty hiring the right people for the job.

Solutions

Sembcorp proposed deploying its proprietary AOP system to treat the harsh wastewater. To ensure the success of this project, Sembcorp performed an intensive treatability studies plan to ensure that the new system is able to continuously and consistently treat this wastewater stream.

Addressing the challenges of operations, Sembcorp proposed implementing a digital platform – WaterOS, supported with onsite manpower to ensure 24/7 operations and monitoring for compliance – to allow customer to focus on their production.

These solutions, when implemented, are expected to reduce their overall disposal costs by ≥10% while enabling them to achieve their sustainability goals.