Sultan I. Amer, Ph.D. AQUACHEM INC. Environmental Technology • March/April 1998 Wastewater from metal finishing industries contains high concentrations of contaminants which are hazardous to the environment and pose potential health risks to the public. With increasingly stringent regulations governing wastewater discharge and greater quantities of wastewater being produced, there is a growin...

The Merit Partnership is a joint venture between U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9, state and local regulatory agencies, private sector industries, and community representatives. The partnership was created to promote pollution prevention (P2), identify P2 technology needs, and accelerate P2 technology transfer within various industries in southern California. One of these ind...

This report presents the results of PRCs waste audit study for the metal finishing industry. The study was conducted to identify opportunities for waste reduction available to the metal finishing industry and to develop a generic audit protocol that can be used by metal finishers to assess their own waste reduction opportunities. The study emphasized technologies available to smalland medium-si...

Wastewater discharged from metal-finishing processes usually contains cyanide, a hazardous substance that is used extensively in the surface finishing industry. In the present study, a synthetic solution resembling the contaminated wastewater was chemically treated using ferrous sulfate. This simple one-step process was applied successfully to remove cyanide from metal finishing wastewater. The...

This report focuses on the surface finishing of metals or metal finishing as it is usually called. Because of the wide range of techniques used and the similarity between some of the techniques, a classification system was devised to organize the presentation of the material. Metal finishing activities have been divided into (1) pretreatments, which include cleaning and surface preparation, (2 ...

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Surface-finishing protocols have a mechanical impact on ceramic surfaces that could eventually affect surface topography and light scattering. An optimum protocol is needed to avoid damaging the optical properties of ceramics. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of different surface-finishing protocols on the surface roughness, color change, and...

The metal finishing industry is water intensive. Surveys of South African metal finishing companies indicate that water consumption is as high as 400 L/m of metal surface treated, whilst best available practice can achieve less than 10 L/m. The industry uses hazardous chemicals such as chrome VI, cadmium, nickel and cyanide. If consumption of these chemicals can be optimized, quantities of heav...