A wastewater treatment model using PVA gel has been implemented on a trial basis at the Da Nang branch of the Ha Long Canned Food Company in the Seafood Services Industrial Park.  Over the 4 months since implementation, the treatment quality at the company has met the city’s effluent discharge standards.

The Ha Long Canned Food Company specialises in manufacturing canned tuna products. It produces an average wastewater volume of 100m³ every day with a Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) concentration of 3,000mg/l.  The new wastewater treatment model has helped the company decrease the COD concentration of its wastewater to around 1,000mg/l, or even sometimes as low as 600mg/l.

The application of the model in Da Nang is part of the ‘Improving the Quality of Treated Wastewater and Methods of Operating Wastewater Treatment Systems at Seafood Processing Plants across Viet Nam’ project which is being funded by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment (JMOE).

Expert Hiroshi Imajo at the wastewater treatment plant

The company’s installation and commissioning expert, Mr Hiroshi Imajo, said that wastewater treatment processes and parameters in waste water analysis at the company have been recorded carefully by surveillance cameras and then sent to the JMOE for further advice.  He said that, once fully successful, the model will be expanded into other seafood processing plants nationwide to improve the quality of wastewater treatment.

Composed primarily of polyvinyl alcohol, PVA gel has a porous, reticulate structure that can trap and carry micro-organisms.  PVA gel is used as an alternative to the activated sludge method of treating wastewater.