ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the technology as new simply because platers have been unaware of its effectiveness, low capital costs and its overall contribution to reduced operating costs when chemical dragout volumes are large. It discusses a case study involving designing and engineering a wastewater treatment facility for a northern New Jersey captive market electroplating shop. The electroplating and metal finishing industries traditionally are operations that have low profit margins. This is true in the case of job shop operations where competitive bidding leads to minimized earnings. For the captive electroplating shop under study, no additional area was needed to incorporate the wastewater system. Material recovery coupled with low temperature evaporation is an inexpensive option applicable to wastewater pretreatment. The new concept of wastewater treatment involves the operations of material recovery and low temperature evaporation. In reality the methodologies have been used and are still used by precious metal platers where materials recovery is paramount to their staying in business.
