Saving Water in Gummidipoondi, India

Our Gummidipoondi facility faces a difficult situation: it is located in an area afflicted by water scarcity, yet requires a large quantity of water per day to operate.

Water is brought in from surrounding wells, but its inconsistent quality requires a purification process, which leads to significant water loss. Furthermore, the carbon black operations at Gummidipoondi produce large amounts of effluence and use water for cooling processes and reactor cleaning.

The local process development team considered these problems and identified solutions, which included: stopping the flushing of water during the cooling process; the deployment of a vacuum pump to remove water from collection tanks for its reuse within the facility; diverting the water used to clean the reactor into a purification facility; and the recycling of effluents into cooling processes through treatment.

These solutions were effective means of drastically reducing the amount of water lost through our processes and responsibly preserving this natural resource in an area in which water is scarce.