Reason for treatment (flow is nominally 40 gpm) is to remove ~6 mg/L of chlorinated solvents (such as TCE) but the water is anoxic and has High Fe and Mn (~20-50 mg/L), traces of PCBs, traces of petroleum hydrocarbons, Total suspended solids (50 mg/L), Total Dissolved Solids (400 mg/L), and up to 200 mg/L of chloride. Problems include precipitation/clogging with solids, bacterial build up/clogging and corrosion and zero tolerance for PCBs in the effluent.
Current system includes oil-water separator, pH adjustment, several series of filters--cumbersome and expensive--before pre-treatment is adequate to remove the chlorinated solvents--currently by advanced oxidation.
I am tasked with advising my client who wants lower maintenance system--considering complete replacement. I have contacted several vendors and most cannot address all of the issues. Anyone have suggestions for this waste stream?
If the current system is performing I suggest to continue using it. There are, of course, other techologies that can be applied but, as far as I know that would be far more expensive and more maintenance intensive.
Enough of the system is reaching the end of its useful life (more than 10 years in operation); that the client would like to start over because of problems with replacement parts etc.
My post was deleted - for what reason I do not know. Maybe I am putting too much information in there about my company. The previous editor let me do that. Please let me know what I was doing wrong and I will correct my future posts.
Now on the topic:
Activated carbon will remove the TCE, BTEX and PCBs. Contact me privately to discuss.
If the primary issue is TCE and related compounds start by reading the following:
http://www.epa.gov/tio/tsp/download/tce.pdf
What is the treated water being used for? What other contaminant limits, if any, are there on the finished water after treatment? You state at the end of your post that it is a waste stream. Is the client under specific NPDES limits?
Anyone giving advice on treatment needs a more comprehensive picture of the situation. Just remember, any treatment process has a waste stream...you will still need to deal with the contaminants that you remove.
The project is a groundwater remedial action. The treated water is discharged to the sanitary sewer. Permit levels for the sewer discharge are not a problem for VOCs. PCBs cannot be detected. The PCBs are never in the waste stream because either they are with the oil/water separator waste or in filtrate. Because some of the filtrates may have PCBs--all of these are disposed of as PCB waste. Sufficient treatment of the VOCs is not really the problem so much as all the maintenance complexity and cost for both pre-treatment and that involved with the VOC treatment.
Every month in Water Technology Magazine, "Professor POU/POE" answers reader questions about point-of-use/point-of-entry water treatment.
If you have a question for the Professor (also known as David Bauman, Technical Editor), send an e-mail to rdipaolo@ntpmedia.com and we'll pass it along. With your question, please indicate your general location (region, state, province, etc.). Not all questions will be chosen for publication.
Write for WT
Water Technology welcomes and encourages editorial contributions from the world of residential water conditioning, bottled water delivery, and treatment for commercial or light industrial applications.
To place a classified ad online, e-mail your ad text to pharrington@ntpmedia.com or call Pat Harrington at 518-640-9173.
Bookstore
WaterTechBooks.com is an online bookseller for the water treatment industry. It has dozens of titles in stock, in a variety of categories. A simple e-commerce platform allows you to complete your transaction online and have your books shipped directly to your home or business.
Every month in 
