Feasibility of Industrial Wastewater Reuse in Production Units of Paxan Company

Water is one of the most important substances in people's lives and the basic resource for all industrial activities. Population growth and water consumption increment have caused water resources decrease. This is the most essential motivation in finding a renewable resource for natural resources substitution. Due to the high cost of water and environmental regulations, there is a great interest in the minimization of freshwater consumption and wastewater discharge into the environment (Pastor et al, 2000).World experiences indicate that, because of water shortage, wastewater and recycled water can be considered as one of the valuable water resources. If standards and regulations are observed, they will have useful effects such as quantitative and qualitative protection of water resources, prevention of water resources pollution, decreasing the need for chemical fertilizers, lands regeneration, economic advantages and possibility of its application in industrial activities (Vice Presidency for Strategic Planning and Supervision of Iran, 2010). Three main advantages of wastewater reclamation and recycle in production units as process water include (Van and Braeken, 2006):1) Recycled water is a supplementary and reliable source of freshwater, which can be added to existing sources or replaced them;2) The net volume of water consumed decreases drastically;3) The volume of wastewater to be discharged (and consequently costs/ taxes) decreases.Reclaimed wastewater from municipalities and industries has been used as an additional source of water in many parts of the world, especially in areas with water resource scarcity and rapidly growth of population (Yang and Abbaspour, 2007). According to the preformed projects (Rahimi et al, 2008), in 2000 water availability in Iran was more than 1800 cubic meter per capita per year, whereas the percentage of recovered water to the total consumption was 0.2% (MetCalf and Eddy, 2004).