Whitestone Chemical

The first case history we will discuss is a medium sized chemical company, Whitestone Chemical Co. which is a department of BASF Wyandotte Corporation. They manufacture specialty organic chemicals and are located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Whitestone manufactures primarily alkoxylates surfactants from... 

The engineers at Cummins had heard that it was unusual for RO equipment to be cleaned as often as every 2k to 36 hours. They decided to investigate the possibility of pretreating the waste water prior to the RO or possibly replacing the RO with some other device which would require less operator attention. It is Interesting at this point to compare the attitude of the operators at Whitestone Chemical, who were prepared to clean the RO unit based on the pilot tests, to the operators at Cummins who were unprepared to clean the RO unit and therefore, were upset by a cleaning frequency which was 1/3 as often as the cleaning frequency at Whitestone. 

Like all unit chemical processes, the RO is usually not capable of standing entirely by Itself. The important thing to remember is that a system must be developed to give a complete product. In the case of Cummins, the complete system includes dissolved air flotation, anthracite/sand filtration, activated carbon filtration and RO. In the case of Whitestone Chemical, the complete system includes RO and a cleaning regimen to maintain the RO at the required permeate flow rate. Time will tell which of these alternatives has the best economics. The economics and the proper system using RO are both dependent on the problem that requi res a solution. 

Beal, Thomas W., Operations Manager, Whitestone Chemical Div.,... 

Whitestone did evaluate many alternatives prior to choosing RO. They decided to use RO because the initial cost was low, maintenance requirements were low and operator attention was minimal compared to the alternatives. Whitestone also calculated that the operating costs, both in manpower needs and in actual chemicals and membrane replacement, was less than other alternatives. Since the RO system would be operating on biologically active materials it was decided that cleaning every 8 hours would be appropriate. Therefore, an automatic Clean-In-Place (CIP) system was developed and installed with the RO unit. There is typically a 1 01 reduction in permeate rate due to fouling prior to the time that Whitestone cleans the RO unit. 

Hardcore Composites fabrication of wind fairings for the New York City Metropolitan Bridge and Tunnel Authority s Bronx-Whitestone Bridge earned The Dow Chemical Co s 2003 Americas Fabricator Excellence Awards (FEA). The RP wind feirings replaced 7400 ft (2.2 km) of heavy steel trusses. 

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