Sewage treatment for a cancer hospital

Published on by in Technology

I am to design a sewage treatment system for a cancer hospital. Can anyone suggest what method would work best as the sewage would be coming from patients who are undergoing chemotherapy/Radiotherapy and also having a lot of antibiotics? The chemical waste (liquid) from labs etc - what is the best treatment for that? 

Taxonomy

15 Answers

  2. Hello Susmita

    1. Can we segregate the wastewater from different sections? Like from Labs, Radio therapy, flow containing antibiotics

    2. Get BOD/COD ratio of each flow

    3. Quantify each flow on hourly basis (just get daily flow variations)

    I worked in a Swedish bulk drug manufacturing and formulation industry and sucessfully  implemented an WWTP for the waste.

    You can call me on 9880928040 (India) for more details

  3. Hi Susmita

    Congratulations on your project!! 

    To choose the most appropriate design to solve the problem of liquid waste from cancer hospitals, it is necessary to collect more complete data or information to choose the best treatment, these are some of the questions that become the basis for choosing the right technology to be applied in a project.

    1. Daily volume and flow rate of the waste 
    2. The availability of land
    3. available budget
    4. Maintenance budget, if it’s any
    5. Effluent targets to be achieved based on local government regulations

    After the 4 questions above are answered, there will be several choices of technology that are right for the problem
    1. Biological treatment technology ( SBR, extended aeration, trickling filter)
    If you choose this technology, then what must be the main certainty is the area of ​​land you have, and the civil construction budget which will be very expensive, because this technology will be very successful if the land owned is very large and civil construction is right. with the presence of antibotic content and used solutions of chemotherapy and dialysis, it is necessary to add chemicals such as PAC at the primary treatment stage and the addition of chlorine at the secondary treatment stage, but to neutralize the antibotic content, it is better to continue with the addition of subsurface wetland technology, because for the case of radioctive substances can be neutralized with this technology, but still this technology will produce sludge in the reactor during the settling process, a strong and quality submersible pump is one that must be taken into account, and of course you need a filter press or screw press for solve the sludge problem, don't forget the water from the screw press must go back into the inlet tank.
    2.physical-chemical technology, if you choose this technology, then the thing that will definitely happen is a large consumption of chemicals, and precision, besides that civil construction will greatly support this technology, the maintenance costs of dosing pumps and safety implementation will be a thing. Very much attention, and of course there will still be side products in the form of sludge and you need a filter press, the water from the filter press will be returned to the inlet tank.

    3. electrocoagulant technology, this technology is not yet a very familiar technology, but for a capacity below 200m3 / day and you have a limited civil construction budget, also limited land, and you don't want to add difficult chemicals, then a recommendation to use this technology It needs to be taken into account, because in addition to saving construction costs, saving land and also saving maintenance costs, and requires little chemicals at the primary treatment stage which aims to neutralize pH only, of course there is an addition of a sludge treatment machine because the electrocoagulant reactor will produce quite a lot of sludge. so you need a filter press machine, the water in the filter press should be put back into the inlet tank or it can also be forwarded to the ion exchange filter, but it's better to return it to the inlet tank. This technology will usually be made in conjunction with ion exchange and absorption filters, but if there is excess land and you want to make something of aesthetic value, you can continue this technology with the addition of wetland technology, which from some literature there are several aquatic plants that can reduce radioactive content.

    4. membrane technology (MBR, MBBR,)
    membrane technology is used as an additional technology in biological treatment technology, MBR can be placed in a tertiary treatment stage, so that it can be used as a substitute for wetland, this technology can also continue after electrocoagulant technology and chemical physics, membrane manufacturers provide a lot of information on their products and As a rule, using this technology as a tertiary treatment you must be ready with the need for additional chemicals for CIP cleaning and maintenance.

    Answered on by

  5. Respected Madam, 

    We “OSE ”  are extensively working in the field of providing cost effective & sustainable Solution for Sewage water treatment to Industries, Hospital, Corporate Offices, Township, Commercial Complex, Resident Colony etc… It’s my immense pleasure to inform you about Our new innovative technology for treatment of Sewage water with a very cost effective way . No Aeration &  No Chemical dosing is required.

     

      Electro Coagulation Technology for Treatment of  Domestic & Industrial Sewage Water/Effluent water (Skid Mountain )

    Electro Coagulation (EC) is a water treatment process whereby an electric field is applied across plates to remove various contaminants from water. An Electro Coagulation water treatment system represents a major advancement in wastewater treatment - A revolutionary electrical-based technology for effectively treating complex waste streams economically and on-site. Current is applied to the electrolytic cell plates causing trace amounts of the plate material to be dissolved into the water. The action is similar to adding separation chemicals (polymers)  to a chemical treatment system but much less expensive.

    Feature of Electro Coagulation Process Base Skid Mountain Plant 

    •          Run on Electricity only 
    •          Continuous Process plant 
    •          No Retention time is required 
    •          Semi / Fully Automatic Process Plant 
    •          Normally, Can be installed on top of the Main final Septic Tank 
    •          No chemical dosing is required 
    •          No aeration is required 
    •      Treated water quality will not have any foul smell & at par with reuse quality. Treated water can be reused in flush, gardening, cooling tower, farming etc. 

    we have attached herewith our technical brochure for your ready reference. 

     

    Regards, 

     

    Jalendu Pathak

    Founder

     

  6. Very difficult to treat. Especially in a stand alone WWTP. Better to dilute and feed into a much larger WWTP that has more diverse feed source.

  7. Hi Susmita 

    with our Indian Partner Sulabh International we would arrange to work with you to use local materials to create an easy to maintain  sustainable safe system of water treatment to UK standards.  Please contact me on hannah@nvhglobal.com if you are interested.

  8. Susmita;

    You should first get information describing the WW flow rate  and composition.  Without a characterization of the WW treatment need its impossible to provide a recommendation for an optimal treatment scheme.  Any proposals made without a LOT more information are simply attempts to get your business, they are not credible.   Some general information you’ll need to start determining what treatment steps are required include:


    1. Anticipated flow rate & daily variability?  What are the concentrations of the typical WW contaminants and what heavy metals, radioactive, and biologically refractory organics are present in the WW and what are their anticipated mass loadings in the discharge?  A good WW characterization is the starting point for any WW treatment design.   Be careful to identify any instances where there could be significant changes in either flow or composition - these need to be accommodated in the design with either additional treatment capacity or with equalization capacity.   It’s also important to determine if there will be any increases in WW treatment requirements in the future - I have never known of a treatment system that didn’t eventually need to be expanded.   If you provide a treatment system, there are always others who will want to add their WW to it or the original need will increase for a variety of reasons.  Under-design is a very common problem.   Be careful of estimates of WW flow or composition that were made to reduce the cost of the system - this is a very common mistake that is costly to correct.  And it’s always prudent to design the system to allow expansion without major obstacles. 

    2. Will this WW discharge be combined with any other WW streams prior to your treatment system?  Will there be any diluting WW mixed with it prior to treatment?  Will the discharge environment be part of the treatment or be used for dilution?  Understand what is meant by this.

    3. Would it be possible to segregate any of the hospital’s individual streams prior to treatment - it’s always best to treat difficult contaminants in the most contaminated streams possible.   Treatment systems for some of the individual constituents are complex and expensive - dilution is not the solution.  If you can treat for them in a small stream, it will be lower cost and much more efficient.  This is especially important for contaminants not easily treated in conventional STP’s - heavy metals, radioactive constituents, refractory organics, etc.; all of which are likely concerns with a hospital WW stream.  You need to be especially careful with any contaminants that can bio-accumulate or ones that need to be removed to very low concentrations.  If the hospital can segregate these streams, it’s likely that they could be treated more efficiently as individual streams rather than as part of the entire WW stream - I stress the importance of this.
     

    4.  To expand on the above... It’s likely that many of the more dangerous of these wastes will be relatively small volume waste streams and could likely be segregated without much effort.  In some cases they may simply be collected in specialized collection containers at the point of use & discharge.  Many will come from laboratories that typically collect solvents and other regulated wastes in separate containers (at least in countries with strict environmental regulations).  Dumping into the hospital drain/sewer is easy for the hospital employees but this can cause the treatment of the entire WW stream to be very complex and expensive - if handled responsibly.  I would hope the hospital would be supportive of efforts to allow their WW to be properly treated with minimal risk to people and the environment.  If the dangerous and difficult waste streams can be collected separately, they can be disposed of with technologies that wouldn’t be economically feasible for the entire WW discharge from the hospital.   
     
    5. Be careful of any vendor suggestions for simple systems that don’t remove the dangerous contaminants and use dilution to coverup their presence.   The metals and any contaminants that can’t be biologically broken down to non-harmful elemental constituents need to be physically removed from the WW stream prior to discharge.  If they aren’t, they will accumulate in the area around the discharge - regardless of the volume of water providing the dilution.  Conservation of mass is a reality.  There are many systems that simply hide the contaminants either with dilution or by combining them with materials that make analytical detection very difficult.  These type of systems will eventually result in high concentrations of refractory organics and heavy metals in the food chain.  This typically takes years to become evident in the receiving environment.   But when it does, it can mean illness, loss of life and very, very expensive remediation efforts.  This is likely the most important design consideration - if you want an environmentally responsible design.  And be especially careful of accepting advice from any organizations selling systems which do not understand (or care) that their systems allow bio-accumulation.  Never put human life at risk to save money nor accept advice from people who place more importance on a sale than the consequences of what will happen. 

    6. How sensitive is the receiving body - could the contaminants damage the area around the discharge?   Will the discharge provide nutrients that could result in algae blooms or could they upset the environmental balance in the discharge area? 

    7. What are the environmental regulations in the area of the discharge?   The discharge should comply with all governmental requirements.  And it should also not represent a danger that isn’t properly regulated by the government.  The treatment should be responsible even if that means exceeding government requirements. 
     

    The above is a quick list of things to consider.   It is by no means complete but it should hopefully get you going in the right direction.  Get with a design group that understands the needs and will design a system to meet the needs.   It’s unlikely that any individual vendor’s system will provide all of the treatment needs - don’t try a square peg for a round hole.  Vendors will always promise anything needed to get the contract.    Remember conservation of mass when evaluating whether a proposal will remove all of the contaminants in this WW.  I suspect that you will be presented with proposed systems that don’t accommodate this reality and it can be one of your first criteria for eliminating proposals.  
     

    Good luck..

  10. Better use Chlorine and give sewage water some reaction time , after words use Ozonator atleast 100 g/hour  i think by doing all this risk factor is near to zero of all Contaminants coming out from hospital   Need further help can call Pakistan time 9 am to 5 pm @ 923337622022

  11. Hello. We have technologies for hospitals' sewage treatments as the AVS electromagnetic vortex layer units. This equipment is highly efficient in the decontamination of industrial waste streams.
    AVS has an important feature - they are easy to integrate into existing technological lines. At the same time, it is possible to significantly increase the productivity and quality of production, without changing either technology or equipment. Contact me directly on Linkedin or +380954782422 WhatsApp

  12. Madam,

    We can suggest Non-Chemical and Electricity way treating the Water By Vortex Technology.No maintenance and consumables.further details contact Mr.Dewanchand,mobile-9729370239 or

    mail id-dewanchand05@gmail.com 

    regards

    Parthasarathy

    8939325179

     

    1 Comment

  13. Dear Susmita Sinha,

    If the outflow lands up to a natural Waterbody (which means linked to earth, Water on top of it and open to air on top) which means it is neither laminated from bottom nor covered from top, then it can be treated in-situ conditions through #Cownomics Technology. And can be made reusable. All contamination (from antibiotics to coliform to radiations) can be taken care of in the aqua-ecology itself.

    you can write in to me at the following ID - madhukar@cownomics.in 

    1 Comment

  14. Hello,dear Susmita Sinha
    GlobeCore company can offer you a solution. Could you please write your e-mail so I could send all the information.

    Best regards,

    Water treatment specialist : Ms.Nadine Hubar

    e-mail:hubar.n.globecore@gmail.com

    WhatsApp +380959488509

    Skype:hubar.n.globecore@gmail.com

    More information at https://avs.globecore.com/

    1 Comment