MicroEVAP: Concentrating Cheese Manufacturing Wastewater Efficiently to Conserve Natural Resources

Micronic Technologies a certified woman-owned small business located in Bristol Virginiaproposes a simpler more effective and cost-efficient way to remove significant TDS amountsfound in cheese manufacturing brine and concentrate retentate water for reuse in a single stepTM using their new patented state-of-the-art technology called MicroEVAP .Unlike any otherTM water purification system available on the market today MicroEVAP is a system that does notrequire any pretreatments filters membranes chemicals high heat or high pressure.Itseparates water from contaminants via a unique system of mechanical evaporation vaporcompression and condensation; with reduced complexity and cost as wellas increased throughput. MicroEVAPâ„¢ received industry recognition in 2016 winning aninternational technological challenge awarded by General Electric (GE) and Statoil of Norway toaddress the fracking market. Micronic was chosen as 1 of 4 from over 100 applicantsrepresenting 23 countries speaking to the power of MicroEVAPâ„¢.The dairy industry is a large contributor to the amount of wastewater produced in America (Stateof Wisconsin 1998).Due to the future limitations on certain constituents and the need forconserving the world's water companies are engaging in new technologies to reduce theirenvironmental footprint.The objective of this Phase I proposal is to conduct a water testingTMprogram using the MicroEVAP system to clean and enable reuse of the chloride streams andreverse osmosis retentate used in the cheese manufacturing industry. Since chlorides are heavilyTM used in the cheese manufacturing industry and MicroEVAP has a rich history of high TDSTM removal there are several stakeholders that believe MicroEVAP may be the solution to theirproblem.Micronic is partnering with Grande Cheese for this Phase I SBIR Proposal. Grande's objectivesof this project are to determine if Micronic Technologies can cost effectively concentrate theirchloride streams. The brine comes from the cheese making process and they would like to returnit back to cheese making. The nanofiltration/reverse osmosis retentate is generated during wheyprocessing and they would like to concentrate that for animal feed. The main objective is toTM assess the potential integration of MicroEVAP to generate high-quality potable water for reusein the plant. The project anticipates returning solids and water to animal feed reducing theamount of water required for farms to pump out of the ground and provide minerals that thecows need. In addition reusing the concentrated wastewater for road deicing (non-food grade)by the local county saves 15% in rock salt use.In addition to cleaning the dirty water and recovering a 95 percent throughput utilizingTM MicroEVAP reduces wastewater disposal costs and allows resource recovery from the brine.After resource recovery the eventual small slurry can be dried and incorporated into concreteeliminating the possibility of leakage where it can be sent to a landfill.With over 150 testsconducted MicroEVAPâ„¢ consistently removed over 99% of TDS and most othersolids.Micronic Technologies believes it will be successful at removal and concentrating cheesewastewater due to its high removal history for myriad contaminants specifically TDS.