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Beta Control Systems, Inc. was founded in 1980 with the corporate philosophy based on what was coined years later as “Sustainable Development.” We dedicated our resources to developing and applying technologies that would leave the smallest environmental footprint while competing cost effectively with all alternatives. We have pioneered technologies that convert waste products into valuable co-products or recycled products.

Our approach to water processing follows our original direction while also setting a new standard for low energy and low cost processing. We chose low energy state-of-the-art membranes, recover energy from the process, and avoid the use of dangerous, corrosive chemicals. Our ultimate goal is to produce high quality water and a final salt product that has beneficial use.

We learned from more than a quarter century of worldwide competition that having the Best Environmental Technology Available doesn’t matter if you don’t win the bid. We rely on innovation and cost engineering to keep our technology competitive while still meeting the customer’s goals.

Natural Gas Application

Ground Water Application

Our oxidation and pre-filtration system produces a high quality, suspended-solids-free filtrate.

After pre-filtration, the salt removal begins. A centrifugal pump drives the filtrate through the Primary Membrane System equipped with our special low energy membranes. This stage recovers about 80% of the water as a very high quality permeate product. The remaining 20% of the feed volume continues to the Secondary stage.

In the Secondary stage, the concentrated brine from the first stage feeds through a booster pump into the membrane concentrator. In this stage, the membrane process generates permeate well below discharge limits while concentrating the brine to levels far above seawater. The volume of the Secondary permeate, when added to the Primary permeate, represents recovery of over 98% of the initial well water.

The super-concentrated brine from the Secondary process is then fed to the final step—atmospheric evaporation. The evaporator further increases the final salt concentration and reduces the brine volume. We utilize recovered energy from the membrane pumping system to drive the motors required for the tower, rendering this step of the process essentially energy free. This brine is then collected and either evaporated and crystallized offsite or trucked to an injection well after solids extraction.

Our process includes careful, effective oxidation of bio-organics and pre-filtration of the raw water fed to the Primary Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) skid. The process is automated and includes monitoring, control, and documentation.

Pre-Filtration

The effectiveness of oxidation and pre-filtration stage greatly impacts the performance of the processes that follow. In any metal removal system, it is important that the bacteria and algae are destroyed and denied growth media before filtration. The filtrate from this stage will be devoid of insoluble organics and suspended solids to a <10 micron size.

We have included an automatically switching, dual pre-filter to keep the system on line. A pump drives pressurized water through UV lamps to kill the bugs before entering the selected pre-filter. Once the “A” pre-filter has fully loaded with solids, the valves will switch the flow to the “B” pre-filter and flush the solids from the loaded media in “A”, returning it to available service.

The backwash process uses water from the permeate tank to clean the filter media. Our backwash pump drives 150 gallons of clean water up through the off-line pre-filter and floats the media bed. This action scrubs the solids from the heavier media and forces them into a settling tank. The solids are collected in a bag filter for disposal. The solids-free filtrate solution is sent to Tank #1 for further processing.

All pre-filtered water discharges into the surge tank (Tank 1) with a residual solids size of less than 10 micron. This tank is monitored by an analog level device that sends level information to our PLC in order to balance the system. Our proprietary software not only provides control and balance to the process, it also records the operating data for downloading as text and charts.

Primary Reverse Osmosis

Pre-filtered water, now devoid of suspended solids and biological foulants, is fed through a <5 micron “absolute” filter on the reverse osmosis skid. This final filtration step insures that any “bleed through” or fine silt not captured in the pre-filtration stage does not reach the next stage. Depending on the membrane selected, varying degrees of salts will pass through the membranes. The heavy metals that pass to the effluent are well below 0.6 ppm.

Secondary Membrane Concentration

The concentrated brine rejected in the Primary R.O. skid is collected in Tank 2 and then sent to a Beta Secondary Brine concentration process for further reduction of volume. The higher pressure operation requires special membranes to produce a very low volume, highly concentrated zinc-brine product. The concentrate (secondary brine) from this process will often constitute a volume as low as one percent (1%) of the original feed from the source.

ZLD- Zero Liquid Discharge

Beta has specialized in “closed loop” environmental technologies for almost 30 years. Our unique designs focus on minimal environmental impact with the fastest return on investment. In most cases the best decision is to create products from what was once considered waste. To accomplish the most sustainable solution, Beta provides a complete selection of proven technologies that can be coupled to provide lemonade from lemons.

• Lowest Operating Cost
• No hazardous or corrosive chemicals
• Smallest possible energy and environmental footprint
• All co-products recycled

For over 30 years, Beta has pioneered sustainability through our focus on recycle and reuse of hazardous waste product streams. We make it our mission to invent and apply technologies that minimize both personal and corporate exposure. Our engineers design technologies that are energy efficient, automated, and cost effective.

In our experience, nothing good ever happens when harsh chemicals must be used and handled. The membrane process uses only pump pressure and robust membranes to produce the highest quality product. Since no chemicals are required, safety and environmental liabilities are minimal. Even the final brine is pH neutral and can often be used as a product.