The Epwin Group are one of the U.Ks largest suppliers and manufacturers of PVC, aluminium windows, doors and fascia systems. As part of their product range expansion Epwins have installed a multistage Powder Coating plant at their Hortonwood depot in Telford. The sophisticated system is made up of several large dip tanks containing various chemicals and rinse waters including acids, alkalines and demineralised water. The tanks are all automatically topped up or replenished based on different critical operational parameters as cross contamination between tanks degrades the contents beyond its effective usability. All of these tanks create a wastewater stream which can vary massively in P.H from hour to hour and cannot be discharged to local authority drains without either treatment or an expensive discharge permit.  Kirton were approached at this point to provide a suitable solution to dynamically treat the effluent prior to site discharge to allow the powder coating to be carried out on site compliantly.

Kirton Water Treatment Services installed a fully automated P.H correction and monitoring facility. To minimize the chemicals used for the P.H correction Kirton installed a effluent buffer tank, this allows the different waste streams to blend together to form a more consistent effluent stream. The P.H is automatically corrected in the buffer tank and after a period of homogenization the treated water is discharged to drain via a secondary monitoring and metering stage. This secondary stage communicates directly with the control system, and if the P.H does not meet discharge consent limits the transfer is stopped and returned to the buffer tank for further treatment and a system in breach alarm is raised to the operators. Since installing the above Kirton system site have been able to focus their time and attention on more productive activities knowing their effluent is leaving site fully treated and within local authority compliance limits.

Epwin were so satisfied with Kirton’s overall professionalism and project management that we were invited to install the entire water treatment and chemical management system for the powder coating plant. This included installing and commissioning the chemical bulk store tanks, the chemical transfer pumps, the chemical day store tanks, and the system control centre. The entire powder coating plant is now running fully automated.