Water Treatment from Borehole

I wondered if anyone could advise on water treatment for a dairy please? We currently treat with various filters including UV however one of the retailers has said this isn't sufficient and we need to build a water treatment plant and use chlorine dioxide. I have no knowledge of this sector and would greatly appreciate advice.

Many thanks in advance.

Dear terrine,

Presumably the water is required to be validatably "potable".

May I enquire why yr retailer thought yr system  was "insufficient" ? Why Chlorine Dioxide?

IMEX (not dairy)  the most common problem is that the analytical results are either unsatisfactory or insufficient for some specific item(s).

In yr location, i suspect there are also likely to be statutory requirements involved.

Rgds / Charles.C

From my limited knowledge, UV is great but chlorine dioxide is quick acting and has a longer term effect which is why people often use it more or as well as UV.  Do you have RO filters and polisher / UF filters?

Hi Charles / GMO,

There is legislation covering water from private supplies which the dairy more than complies with; we have a 20 micron, 5 micron and UV filter - no UF. The water is only used for cleaning not an ingredient. The retailer has suggested that UV is insufficent to destroy Pseudomonas which could potentially be a problem - regardless of the fact that to date we have never had an issue with our water. Chlorine dioxide - because that's what one of the biggest UK dairy groups uses at all its sites. If we have to treat it chemically then so be it but I'd rather be sure it was definitely the right decision for us as opposed to just giving in! 

Thank you both for your repsonses.

We use a chlorine dioxide plant, and to be honest it manages itself. We're a medium sized dairy.

Town mains water passes through it into production and it is used for ingredient and washing water. We have no problems

I would bet that the majority of (large) dairy companies use it. I used to work for a large dairy company who also had a bore hole; we had one site with no chlorine dioxide plant and ended up with a pseudomonas problem. It's all about belts and braces.

Hello Mr terrine,

      Since your raw water is from borewell ,you have to carry out the tests as per the regulatory requirements for water used in dairy industries. Normally water used in dairy industries is of potable nature.  you have to first give a sample to outside accredited lab for various tests to see if water is of potable standard.Tests are-heavy metals (toxic metals) like mercury,arsenic,aluminium,antimony etc,TDS,pH,and  Pesticide residues and radilological residues.

Then microbiological tests like APC,yeasts and molds,E.coli,salmonella pseudomonas,vibro-cholera,clostridium perfringes,shigella etc

after you receive the report,you have to treat the water accordingly like chlorination of raw water then passing through sand and carbon filter, the micron filters of 5 and 10 microns and (if reduction of TDS is required than  R.O filteration) and U.V. light etc.

if further treatment required it can be ozonisation.

Periodically you have to give your filtered water to outside lab for testing of above parameters as per your Regulatory requirements of your country for water used in dairy industries.

Dear terrine,

Unfortunately my main area of expertise is not dairy, unlike Caz.

The retailer has suggested that UV is insufficent to destroy Pseudomonas

.

Well, I have no direct UV experience but I think it’s fairly well documented that UV is capable of  inactivating typical Pseudomonas species in drinking water, filtration applications.

However, from memory, UV may have certain design limitations, for example regarding efficiency versus volume flow-rates / pipe line dimensions. Yr installation agent should presumably be able to validate any such practical aspects.

The water is only used for cleaning not an ingredient

The problem here is that any contamination of the water will potentially interact with the dairy processing environment ?. And Pseudomonas is clearly a well-known, potential, major headache in the milk business from such opportunities.

It may be simply that yr retailer has a specific list of  minimum requirements established from local industry “standards” / problem experience / internal QA  which include chemical control as a “must have”. Caz’s post suggests this may well be the case (ie prevention better than cure, especially if someone else’s $). You presumably see other  similar  operations to yr own, how do they compare ?

IMEX (non-dairy, no particular Pseudomonas problem) I was long time ago offered ClO2 since customer loved the stated, non-tainting capability, but it was significantly expensive  plus other options were of adequate microbiological efficiency / product flavour. Horses for Courses. :smile:

Rgds / Charles.C

I wondered if anyone could advise on water treatment for a dairy please? We currently treat with various filters including UV however one of the retailers has said this isn't sufficient and we need to build a water treatment plant and use chlorine dioxide. I have no knowledge of this sector and would greatly appreciate advice.

 

Many thanks in advance.

Hi Terrine,

It would help if you could post a diagram showing your process and treatment.

I would expect to see some form of chemical microcidal treatment, I assume that you do you not chlorinate the bore hole water?

Regards,

Tony

Thank you all very much for you help, advice and information. The concensus seems to be that I'll need to go down the chemical route. To answer a couple of recent questions no, at the moment we don't chlorinate or in any way chemically treat the water (I've always been slightly concerned about tainting) however when carrying out BRC dairy audits elsewhere in the UK generally they had plants installed.

Thank you all again :biggrin: