PROWATER - Sustainable water management in the textile wet industry through an innovative treatment process for wastewater re-use

The main environmental impacts from textile industries relate to the “wet process” stages of textile production. These processes use large volumes of water which are normally discharged as polluted wastewater. The project implemented a process of effluent recycling system - based on clarification in the form of a physical-chemical pre-treatment (coagulation + lamellar sedimentation or flotation), cross-flow ultrafiltration and ozonation. This was proved effective for textile wastewater reuse, from both technical and economic perspectives. More specifically, all rtarget pollutants were removed and treated wastewater was reused effectively in different production processes including fabrics softening and some washing processes. Hence, economically, the proposed system is cost-effective and competitive with commercial purification processes and possible alternative solutions.