Plating Rinse

Plating Rinse Wastewater Solution

Plating rinse wastewater is one of the most common applications for ENCON Wastewater Evaporators. Wastewater from plating rinse tends to be rather corrosive. The chemistries used in the plating process can include a wide range of acids such as nitric acid, chromic acid, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, hydrofluoric acid, as well as other non-acid chemistries like ammonium bifluoride and nickel sulfamate. Typically, the waste stream has a transparent, relatively clean look because they are dilute and the contaminants are in solution.


Plating wastewater cannot be simply flushed down the drain. Many companies choose to avoid the headaches of labor-intensive wastewater treatment technologies such as chemical treatment or filtration and simply pay to haul the wastewater. This however, can become quite expensive.

Many satisfied customers have found that using an ENCON Evaporator to greatly minimize the amount of wastewater needing to be hauled is both simple and cost effective.

ENCON Drum Evaporators are an affordable way to efficiently dewater small volume waste streams. Simple operation. Unit uses a standard 55-gallon drum to hold wastewater. Two models are available: The DE-2 processes up to 200 gallons per week. The DE-4 processes up to 400 gallons per week. The ENCON Drum Evaporator can also handle waste streams too concentrated for traditional evaporators. ENCON Drum Evaporators can even be fitted with a condenser to recycle the distilled water.

For larger volumes, ENCON Thermal Wastewater Evaporators are available with evaporation capacities ranging from 10 to 400 gallons per hour. Thermal units can be run from a number of heat sources such as natural gas, propane gas, oil, diesel, kerosene, electricity, steam or even waste oil. Units are constructed of 316 stainless steel, higher alloys are available for more corrosive applications. A large number of options are available to customize the unit to your needs. Thermal units can even be fitted with a condenser to recycle the distilled water.

For the most economical operating cost, the ENCON Mechanical Vapor Compression (MVC) Evaporator product line has standard offerings that range in capacity from 40-1800 gallons/hour. These systems operate on electricity and compressed air at a typical operating cost of $0.01-$0.02 USD per gallon of distilled water. Materials of construction include 316 Stainless Steel and Super Stainless alloys for more corrosive waste streams.

The ENCON MVC Evaporator is highly automated with minimal need for manpower intervention. Automation includes: wastewater feed, automatic discharge of concentrated residue from the Separation Tank, automatic transfer of distillate from the distillate sump, and automatic cleaning (Clean-in-Place) of heat exchangers. Numerous variables such as temperature, pressure, and water level are monitored continuously, and will trigger various alarm conditions that notify the operator of deviation from normal operating mode.