Paper mill, chemistry, textile and food processing industries are high water consumers. Within the framework of the European project Aquafit4Use, the possibility to close the on-site water loop is studied. The aim is to find new technologies or innovative treatment trains to produce water that is 'fit for use' in the industrial process; an example of a paper mill is given. Laboratory-scale tests on nine technologies were carried out to determine the best suitable treatment train: anaerobic process (already on site) --> aerobic process (already on site) --> Flexible Fibre Filter Module --> softening --> nanofiltration --> evapoconcentration or ozonation on nanofiltration (NF) concentrate. This treatment train is currently compared on site at pilot scale to another treatment train including some modifications on the existing on-site biological treatment: anaerobic process --> softening --> membrane bioreactor --> nanofiltration --> evapoconcentration or ozonation of NF concentrate.

Industrial waste waters re-use through the treatment of their wastewater to produce water qualities according to industrials own specifications can reduce significantly this impact. The European project AquaFit4Use aims at identifying the best new water technologies to reduce environmental impacts by advanced closure of the water cycle and produce water with the required quality ("fit-for-use") for re-use in four industrial sectors (pulp & paper, chemistry, food and textile). New technologies are tested to increase recycling, remove particles, separate salts, minimize waste production in order to propose optimized treatment lines. The new high speed filtration 3FM ® technology and Multiflo TM Softening were tested as pre-treatment of a membrane process in order to fine-tune the quality of the effluent produced by biological treatment with inlet specifications of a nanofiltration process. Case study of an industrial paper mill, which produces paper and board for containerboard and packaging from 100 % recycling fibbers, is reported.

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