Ambuja Cements Ltd, a part of the global conglomerate Lafarge Holcim, is among the leading cement companies in India. Since its inception it has incorporated various sustainable development projects and environment-friendly practices. Ambuja Cement has five integrated cement manufacturing plants and eight cement grinding units across the country. One of its plant is located at Dist. Ropar, Punjab where Ion Exchange has supplied a state-of-art zero discharge plant.
This plant was successfully commissioned and is operational since the past one decade. It has a 30 MW power plant which includes two turbines, each of 15 MW capacity, high and medium pressure boilers 80/45 T/h capacity with operating boiler pressure of 67 kg/sq. cm. each.
The total effluent generated from the utility section of the power plant, is about 500 m3/day. This includes blow down from cooling towers, reject/effluent from softeners, DM plant and pressure sand filters.
A sharp decline in the water levels of the region, stringent discharge norms and an overall environmental consciousness led the company to look for an efficient waste water management system the first of its type within the group, to enable their vision for water conservation and zero discharge.
To treat the effluents, Ion Exchange recommended & implemented a scheme that includes extensive pretreatment of water, INDION® Ultra filtration(UF) followed by two-stage INDION® Reverse Osmosis (RO) and finally evaporation to handle the reject from the membrane systems.
- The plant, recovers 85% of the waste water for reuse and achieves zero discharge.
- At the same time it helps conserve water by reducing fresh water intake through this recycling program and thus helps in preserving fresh water in an area where the water levels are depleting.