In today's global economy, the chemical industry is constantly challenged to improve productivity and efficiency, reduce costs, comply with ever more stringent environmental standards and ensure water supply everywhere on a site at all times.

Water is a key component for chemical manufacturing: optimized water management will not only secure manufacturing processes and improve environmental performance; it will also help achieve savings.

Operating water and wastewater treatment plants for over 25 of the largest international chemical companies, Veolia Water is committed to helping you reach the aforementioned objectives. Our approach of delivering operational excellence combined with proven state-of-the-art technologies makes us the partner of choice worldwide to optimize your existing facilities and support your business as it evolves.

As your business evolves, Veolia Water, as a full-service company, is at your side to help you define the most appropriate solution regarding your water and wastewater treatment facilities: production expansion requiring new water and wastewater facilities, process revamps, restructuring support functions, and other significant undertakings.

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies designs and builds fully integrated and customized water and wastewater treatment plants. We support you at anytime when choosing new and/or upgraded treatment processes. Veolia Water operates and maintains your facilities, guaranteeing treatment performance. Our know-how is available to assist you define the most appropriate solutions for your operations. To date, numerous chemical manufacturing sites have entrusted Veolia Water with the management of their facilities. We produce approximately 80 million m³ of process water and we treat 70 million m³ of wastewater.

Aware of the financial constraints weighing down on water treatment assets, Veolia provides flexible and innovative financing solutions. When taking charge of existing facilities, Veolia Water proposes the transfer of the industrial client's personnel and their integration into its own operating teams.

By optimizing your water and wastewater facilities and reviewing their operation, Veolia Water helps you achieve costs savings while enhancing the water treatment reliability and ensuring environmental compliance of your chemical site. Through experience sharing, benchmarking, volume procurement negotiation, or reorganization of support functions, we are constantly striving towards continuous improvement achieving savings in the way we manage your facilities.

Chemical sites, in particular basic chemical manufacturing sites, are often based in industrial parks or in river or coastal harbor areas. These industrial platforms can be equipped with combined utilities and wastewater treatment plants. Veolia Water provides operational services to many of these industrial platforms in Europe, the US and Asia, treating 130 million m³ of water and wastewater. Veolia Water generates synergy effects from these multi-user plants, resulting in costs reduction and higher efficiencies.

Wastewater recycling and valuable co-product recovery from waste streams is one of the key elements in environmental performance and related cost reductions. In this area, Veolia Water offers several applications based on crystallization and/or membrane technologies.

Recovery of valuable solids from carbonated or acid effluents or wastewater rich in inorganic salts:

• CaF2 from fluoride, with a dryness suitable for recycling
• White gypsum from sulfate for reuse in cement kilns and/or plasterboard plants

Liquid stream regeneration

• Recovery of KOH from spent KF coming from neutralized HF waste streams using the HARDTAC™ crystallization technology (exclusive license from DuPont).
• Centralized treatment units to recover KOH from spent KF coming from alkylation fluorinated gas wet scrubbing purges.

Salt purification: A sustainable solution to purify sodium sulfate from chromium using a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies / HPD crystallizer

Solid waste reduction: When recycling is not feasible, crystallization technologies provide a possibility to enhance solids dryness and reduce waste volume for storage

• HARDTAC™ treatment of leachate from phosphor-gypsum stacks, complying with tight discharge permit and producing solid presenting adequate mechanical properties for backfilling of the existing stack.
• Reduction of red gypsum volumes providing an extension of the stack life time.

Fine and specialty chemical companies produce a wide range of chemical substances which are typically produced in low volumes, mainly by batch systems in multipurpose plants. Water needs vary widely in term of quality and quantity.

From industrial water supply to ultrapure water, Veolia Water can provide you with the most adapted system, supplying the right water quality wherever it is required in your process. Veolia Water can assist with water supply identification to operation and maintenance of your process water facility.

Wastewater with high loads of non degradable organic compounds is a key environmental issue at multipurpose plants. Veolia Water offers its experience and know-how in this field: identification of specific pollution loads, segregation and storage of the effluent concerned, specific treatment and associated control, and adaptation to highly variable effluent flows.

A key milestone in the European environmental legislation, the 2000 Water Framework Directive sets goals for the protection of all water bodies. One of its key objectives is that water basins be managed towards a "good ecological state" of their water bodies 2015. This objective requires that attention be given to sustainable water resource management. As water resource management plans often give priority to human water consumption and environment protection, it is becoming ever more challenging for chemical sites to secure their water supply in terms of quantity and quality.

To free themselves from increasingly frequent water shortages and constantly depleting resources, chemical sites must therefore find alternative solutions and adopt a long-term vision from water consumption optimization to water supply reliability.

Veolia Water provides fully integrated and customized treatment solutions and full operation and maintenance for recycling and reuse of water resources, including:

• Internal streams: reclaimed wastewater, boiler and cooling blowdowns, condensates, remediated groundwater, rainwater run-off, zero liquid discharge solutions.
• External streams: reclaimed municipal wastewater, brackish water and seawater using a thermal and/or membrane desalination processes.

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies offers a wide range of technological solutions to meet the specific needs of the Chemicals Industry.

• Process Water
• Effluent Treatment
• Recycle/ Reuse
• Sludge Treatment
• Odor Treatment