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[PBEVSOLUTIONS
RODUCTION ]
BEVERAGE OPERATIONS CASE STUDY
A Solution That Holds Water
New England Aquafina plant meets a water treatment challenge.
C
PF, I n c./Northeast Hot Fill Co-op,
I n c. (Ayer, Mass., USA), a bottler
of Aquafina and other Pepsi
brands, as well as a number of
Cadbury Schweppes products, wanted
to minimize the cost of water and
sewage and ensure the removal of chloride to 0.5 parts per million during bottled water production. It
had been using two independent
single-pass reverse osmosis (RO)
treatment trains, feeding a product-water storage tank. Each RO
system operated at 75 percent
water recovery, with the remaining 25 percent sent to drain.
Founded in 1983, the plant
produces, in addition to leading
bottled water brand Aquafina, Pepsi,
Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist,
Mug root beer, Tropicana Twister,
Schweppes ginger ale, Dr Pepper and
Lipton iced teas. The plant employs
approximately 150 and operates 24/7.
The largest bottler in New England,
and one of the largest in the US,
CPF/Northeast Hot Fill produced about
26 million cases of beverages in 2006.
Aquafina alone accounted for about 8
million of those cases.
The plant considered two options to
ensure chloride removal: a second-pass
RO system and a continuous electrod e ionization (CEDI) system downstream of
the existing primary RO. It decided, however, that adding second-pass RO or extensively modifying the existing ROs was
not feasible based on overall cost, system
complexity and space considerations.
To minimize its total water costs, the
plant considered a water recycle system,
but wanted to make sure that any water
AQUAFINA accounts for nearly one-third of all beverages produced by CPF, Inc./
Northeast Hot Fill Co-op, Inc. (top); Quality Control manager James Carhart (left)
has found the reverse osmosis system to be user friendly.
diverted to the CSD system would meet
quality standards.
The company decided to add a CEDI
system (a Siemens CDI system) after
each of the two single-pass RO systems.
The CDI system would meet the plant’s
water quality specifications, while
recovering 90 percent of the water. The
system also offered a small footprint
and the ability to adjust the water quality. The 10 percent reject would be of
suitable quality to send to the lime
coagulation water treatment system and
then used for CSD production.
A reject recovery RO system, also
called a brine recovery RO, was added
to treat the reject water from the primary RO systems. The product water
from the recovery RO is sent to the
lime coagulation water treatment system, and the reject from this RO is sent
to drain. A storage tank was installed
upstream of the recovery RO to ensure
that this system only runs when suffi-
cient water is available from the primary ROs.
“We’re able to take the recycled reject
and use it in carbonated beverage production,” says James Carhart, quality
control manager at the plant, “because
the water quality is better than the
product water from traditional lime
coagulation treatment methods.”
With the upgraded system, the company increased the water recovery rate
from 75 percent to more than 90 percent, reducing the plant’s water consumption by approximately 16 million
gallons per year. Besides saving water,
the system ensures that the plant is
achieving its bottled water specification
for ch l o r i d e.The company has been
extremely satisfied with the system’s
operation and purchased a third primary
RO system and carbon tower in 2005.
The product water from this RO is used
for tea production. The system reject is
sent to the recovery RO system.
Reprinted with permission from Beverage World Magazine, November, 2007.