Stable and Reliable Membrane Treatment for High-Variability Brewery & Distillery Wastewater
Brewery and distillery wastewater contains a complex mix of sugars, proteins, suspended solids, and residual fats or grease from processing and clean-in-place operations. These high-strength organic streams lead to elevated BOD and COD loads, and their variability driven by batch operations, cleaning cycles, and seasonal fluctuations creates significant treatment challenges. Many facilities utilize anaerobic biological treatment to manage a portion of their wastewater, which introduces additional complexity when it comes to meeting discharge or reuse requirements. At the same time, operators face growing pressure to reduce surcharges, cut freshwater use, and ensure compliance while maintaining stable, efficient operations.
Traditional membranes struggle in these environments, especially when feedwater quality shifts or solids loads spike. Operators face the following challenges:
- Irreversible fouling from sugars, proteins, and FOG etc.
- Frequent cleanings that fail to restore baseline performance
- Operational instability from suspended solids and seasonal influent changes
- High OPEX driven by chemicals, downtime, and membrane replacements
- Barriers to water reuse or discharge compliance due to inconsistent effluent quality
ZwitterCo’s fouling-resistant membranes offer solutions for brewery and distillery wastewater pretreatment and polishing, enabling reliable treatment of high-strength streams while reducing OPEX and supporting reuse, discharge, or energy recovery.
Fouling-Resistant Membranes for Brewery & Distillery Wastewater with High Organics
Simplify Cleaning and Cut Treatment Costs
- Lower chemicals, energy and water costs
- Reduced downtime
Maintain Stability in High-Strength Streams
- Tolerates high concentrations of organics
- Stable recovery under variable organic load
Achieve Discharge Compliance
- Minimize or eliminate hauling with direct filtration
- Meet environmental discharge standards in polished effluent
Improve AD Yield with Nutrient-Rich Concentrates
- Organic-rich streams enhance biogas production and digestion efficiency
- Reduced dilution supports optimized loading and energy recovery
Brewery & Distillery Wastewater Treatment Solutions
Are you an existing membrane user looking to reduce costs and increase uptime?
Are you considering a membrane solution for discharge compliance and concentrate organics to improve biogas yield?
Elevation membranes for brewery & distillery wastewater:
Membranes with the Highest Resistance to Organic Fouling
Membranes Built with ZwitterShield™
Shorten cleaning duration and extend time between cleaning cycles
Clean with simple chemicals instead of expensive, formulated cleaners
Reliable operations
Enable Treatment and Reuse of the Toughest Wastewater and Process Streams
Membranes Built with ZwitterCore™
Reliable pre-treatment regardless of variation in composition
Capable of handling extreme levels of O&G and other organics
Compact, fast to implement, high reliability and tolerant of upsets
Simplify Cleaning and Cut Treatment Costs
Simpler cleaning. Lower costs.
Operators treating produced water with ZwitterCo membranes benefit from lower operating costs through:
- Reduced chemical use during cleaning
- Ability to clean with low-cost commodity chemicals instead of specialty formulations
- Lower water and energy consumption per cleaning cycle
- Longer membrane life due to fewer and less aggressive cleaning cycles
“The cleaning frequency has gone down and the cleaning was used to be carried out with the surfactant-based cleaning chemicals whereas with the ZwitterCo membranes, we just do flushing with hot water fortnightly. So, a lot of savings on the cleaning chemicals.“
Parag Kachare, Technical Director at ESMIL
EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR
Revolutionizing Water & Wastewater Treatment with ZwitterCo Membranes
We invite you to access our exclusive webinar where experts at ZwitterCo and our customers discuss the latest advancements in reverse osmosis membrane solutions for brewery & distillery wastewater treatment.
“This project is a non-standard project, very high COD in the feed, so there were some challenges. After replacing with the ZwitterCo membranes, the system was able to achieve the intended recovery and maintain performance despite the high organics”
Parag Kachare, Technical Director at ESMIL
Reliability in High Fouling Environments
Designed for high FOG.
ZwitterCo’s Expedition SF membranes offer a reliable alternative to conventional pretreatment systems for brewery and distillery wastewater, especially where high organics content overwhelms standard filtration.
Expedition SF membranes can remove contaminants larger than 1 nm and can handle up to 5% FOG and be cleaned with chlorine, maximizing treatment efficiency and producing ideal feedwater for downstream RO.
ZwitterCo Elevation RO membranes serve as a polishing step to remove dissolved salts and low molecular weight organics that pass through pretreatment enabling high-quality water recovery from challenging wastewater streams.
Achieve Discharge Compliance
Reliable Compliance. No Compromise.
ZwitterCo membranes provide consistent performance in brewery and distillery wastewater applications, even under highly variable and high-strength loads. Expedition SF delivers robust pretreatment by removing suspended solids, grease, and high molecular weight organics, enabling stable RO operation.
Elevation RO membranes handle the remaining dissolved contaminants with minimal fouling, achieving reliable TDS and COD removal to support discharge compliance or water reuse without the frequent cleaning or performance loss seen in traditional systems.
Improve Anaerobic Digestion Yields with Nutrient-Rich Concentrates
Feed AD, fuel profits.
ZwitterCo membranes enhance the efficiency and economic value of existing AD systems by delivering concentrated, high-strength waste streams:
- Expedition SF captures suspended solids, fats, proteins, and complex organics into a thickened stream ideal for co-digestion or animal feed applications. These retained constituents significantly improve biogas generation potential and reduce hauling volume.
- Elevation RO further concentrates dissolved COD, nutrients, and low-MW organics into a secondary stream. When blended with SF concentrate, this unified high-calorific feedstock improves organic loading, digestion stability, and biogas yield in AD units.