Case study · Industrial Manufacturing & Environmental · 2016
Sarnia bioethanol and ABE refinery, three feeds piloted over six months
Petro Sep deployed a hybrid AZEO-SEP®, VOC-SEP®, and AQUA-SEP® plant at a Sarnia, Canada bioethanol and ABE (acetone/butanol/ethanol) refinery. The site is also home to PSC's 'Lean Water' VOC-SEP® pilot, which validated three industrial wastewater feeds over six months.
- Industry
- Industrial Manufacturing & Environmental
- Location
- Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
- Year
- 2016
- Technology deployed
- PV + VP + VMD
Outcomes
The numbers that mattered.
- Lean Water pilot feeds tested
- 3
- Industrial wastewater from Toronto, Tomlinson, and Chateauguay sites, over six months.
- Clean water recovered as discharge
- 70%
- From the pilot trials. Permit-ready quality.
- Organics recovered as high-BTU fuel
- 95%
- Returned to the process as energy or feedstock.
- Alcohols reduction
- 247 ppm from 31,650 ppm (Toronto)
- Other feeds: Tomlinson 43 from 4,400 ppm; Chateauguay 53 from 108,240 ppm.
01
The Sarnia plant
The site is a small refinery configured for bioethanol and ABE (acetone, butanol, ethanol) production. Petro Sep deployed a hybrid plant skid integrating our three platforms: AZEO-SEP® for solvent dehydration past azeotropes, VOC-SEP® for VOC removal from aqueous streams, and AQUA-SEP® for high-TDS aqueous separations. One skid, three separation jobs, one operator-training package.
02
The 'Lean Water' pilot
Alongside the production plant, Petro Sep used the Sarnia site for the Lean Water VOC-SEP® pilot. Three industrial wastewater feeds (sourced from Toronto, Tomlinson, and Chateauguay) were run through the pilot over six months. The trial recovered 70% of feed water as permit-ready discharge quality and 95% of organic content as high-BTU fuel returnable to the process. Pre-membrane to post-membrane alcohol reductions: 31,650 to 247 ppm (Toronto), 4,400 to 43 ppm (Tomlinson), and 108,240 to 53 ppm (Chateauguay). The pilot data published with this case study comes from Petro Sep's 2024 General Presentation.
03
Outcomes
Petro Sep's 2024 company profile dates the Sarnia hybrid plant to 2016. The Lean Water pilot data is Petro Sep's published reference for VOC-SEP® on industrial wastewater. Customers evaluating VOC-SEP® for similar streams can request the pilot dataset under NDA.
Gallery
From the field.
Photographs from fabrication, installation, and commissioning.
Industry
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Technology
How Pervaporation works.
Selective separation of liquid mixtures, including the azeotropes that distillation cannot break.
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