Minimal Liquid Discharge (MLD)

Bringing a more cost-effective approach to your wastewater challenges.

 
 
 

Improve your water footprint for less with MLD

Evolving wastewater regulations can create demanding and sometimes costly production challenges. Factors such as the rising price of water and the significant cost of zero liquid discharge (ZLD) can greatly affect your ability to meet production goals. Many facilities are seeking an alternative to ZLD. Not only is it expensive, but it’s not necessarily the most environmentally friendly process because of the energy and resources it requires.

DuPont Water Solutions can help address your wastewater regulatory challenges with our minimal liquid discharge (MLD) solution. MLD has the potential to minimize your operating costs and maximize water recovery while reducing the amount of energy required to operate.With the industry’s broadest portfolio of purification and separation technologies, we can help you achieve your MLD goals and get you on a path toward cost savings and higher recovery.

 
 
 

Transforming municipal and industrial water treatment

See why minimal liquid discharge offers a more effective solution for wastewater treatment.
Improved efficiency and savings
Typical System Setup

Increase recovery. Reduce costs. 

Many industrial and municipal plants are turning to a minimal liquid discharge (MLD) approach: a core set of integrated processes based on ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), and ion exchange (IX) technologies.

With MLD, you can improve your circular water economy by recovering up to 95 percent liquid discharge for reuse — but at a fraction of ZLD’s costs.

The cost of using RO to recover and reuse up to 70 percent of wastewater is competitive with treating local, fresh-water sources, but it leaves behind 30 percent of the water. When water prices are high and/or water availability is limited, recovering more water becomes necessary.

The thermal processes used in ZLD treatment to recover more water often result in higher costs that are not feasible. But by practicing MLD, you can recover up to 95 percent of the wastewater using membranes prior to thermal processing, which significantly lowers the cost of the recovered water and the overall cost of ZLD, by up to 60 percent.

Graph showing the cost advantage of zero liquid discharge with minimal liquid discharge over zero liquid discharge without minimal liquid discharge; y-axis represents cost of water recovery and x-axis represents percentage of water recovery

Integrating UF, RO, NF, and IX  

The term “minimal liquid discharge” may be relatively new, but the process relies on a set of proven technologies — including ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF),  and ion exchange (IX).

As industry leaders in these purification and separation technologies, we have the experience and expertise to support your transition to a minimal liquid discharge system, wherever you are on the globe.

Our MLD products work together to treat water throughout your facility’s system flow, as illustrated in this typical system setup:

  1. IntegraFlux™ XP ultrafiltration modules minimize the need for pretreatment and reduce backwash volume.
  2. AmberLite™ IRC83 WAC resins remove hardness with up to 30 percent more operating capacity.
  3. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR200 RO membranes reduce cleanings by up to 50%.
  4. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC70/XC80 RO membranes recover purified water for reduced brine volume.
  5. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC120 RO membranes maximize reject concentration at standard RO operating pressures.
  6. DuPont™ Specialty Membranes UHP RO membranes minimize brine volume.
  7. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC-N and XC-N HP salt separation membranes purify brines from wastewater streams for salt reuse applications.
<Illustration of typical setup of DuPont Water Solutions minimal liquid discharge solutions for water treatment in a facility’s system flow; areas of the setup are numbered one through seven
  • Improved efficiency and savings +

    Increase recovery. Reduce costs. 

    Many industrial and municipal plants are turning to a minimal liquid discharge (MLD) approach: a core set of integrated processes based on ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), and ion exchange (IX) technologies.

    With MLD, you can improve your circular water economy by recovering up to 95 percent liquid discharge for reuse — but at a fraction of ZLD’s costs.

    The cost of using RO to recover and reuse up to 70 percent of wastewater is competitive with treating local, fresh-water sources, but it leaves behind 30 percent of the water. When water prices are high and/or water availability is limited, recovering more water becomes necessary.

    The thermal processes used in ZLD treatment to recover more water often result in higher costs that are not feasible. But by practicing MLD, you can recover up to 95 percent of the wastewater using membranes prior to thermal processing, which significantly lowers the cost of the recovered water and the overall cost of ZLD, by up to 60 percent.

    Graph showing the cost advantage of zero liquid discharge with minimal liquid discharge over zero liquid discharge without minimal liquid discharge; y-axis represents cost of water recovery and x-axis represents percentage of water recovery
  • Typical System Setup +

    Integrating UF, RO, NF, and IX  

    The term “minimal liquid discharge” may be relatively new, but the process relies on a set of proven technologies — including ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF),  and ion exchange (IX).

    As industry leaders in these purification and separation technologies, we have the experience and expertise to support your transition to a minimal liquid discharge system, wherever you are on the globe.

    Our MLD products work together to treat water throughout your facility’s system flow, as illustrated in this typical system setup:

    1. IntegraFlux™ XP ultrafiltration modules minimize the need for pretreatment and reduce backwash volume.
    2. AmberLite™ IRC83 WAC resins remove hardness with up to 30 percent more operating capacity.
    3. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR200 RO membranes reduce cleanings by up to 50%.
    4. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC70/XC80 RO membranes recover purified water for reduced brine volume.
    5. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC120 RO membranes maximize reject concentration at standard RO operating pressures.
    6. DuPont™ Specialty Membranes UHP RO membranes minimize brine volume.
    7. FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC-N and XC-N HP salt separation membranes purify brines from wastewater streams for salt reuse applications.

    <Illustration of typical setup of DuPont Water Solutions minimal liquid discharge solutions for water treatment in a facility’s system flow; areas of the setup are numbered one through seven
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Industry-leading minimal liquid discharge technologies

 
 
 

We have developed a broad range of products to help reduce the cost and energy requirements of treating wastewater. The FilmTec™ Fortilife™ RO elements product line for challenging waters helps customers reduce costly concentrate waste, lower operating expenses, and move toward MLD.

Our expertly designed RO elements include FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR200, CR100, XC70, XC80 and XC120, which are equipped to tackle the fouling challenges of high recovery wastewater reuse operations while operating with in standard RO pressure ranges.  The DuPont™ Specialty Membrane UHP RO elements goes beyond and maximizes water recovery and reject concentration by expanding operating pressure ranges up to 120 bar. 

The FilmTec™ Fortilife™ XC-N and XC-N HP ion-separation elements can be used to further treat wastewater by enabling the recovery of purified brines for reuse purposes and reduce salt waste.

In addition, our AmberLite™ IRC83 weak acid cation resins can reduce water hardness and help you achieve up to 30 percent more operating capacity than other weak acid cation resins.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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