Car Wash Water Recycle

Posted: August 25th, 2021

Car Wash Water Recycle

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Car Wash Water Recycle

Project Aim

            In major world cities around the world, water scarcity has in recent years become a big problem. In addition, environmental pollution worsens the already dire water scarcity situation by cutting down on the amount of freshwater that can be safe for human consumption. Therefore, this project aims at contributing to the water management plans within major cities where there exists massive traffic of vehicles and a massive demand for clean water resources by the many city dwellers. In recent years, the world population has expanded to momentous levels, and this brought to light the need for policymakers to devise unique strategies of conserving water for personal usage. Recycling of cash water is one such strategy. By demonstrating savings in the usage of tap water and the recycling of wastewater from car wash facilities, this project also seeks to show the achievability of the laid down American and European Union policies for the conservation of water resources. Recycling and reusing is a technique that is currently being implemented in many parts of the world, especially those with perennial water shortages (Anderson, 2013). Thus, adopting the technique in the car wash facilities guarantees a sustainable solution to challenges of water scarcity and pollution.  Hence, this project proposes a water recycling plant for the car wash facility. Due to the simple underlying design principle of operation for the plant, it can be implemented in virtually any city around the world.

Mission Statement

            In addition to free air, water forms an essential element for the survival of human beings. Because most of the earth’s surface is covered by water, 95 percent of which is saltwater present in seas and oceans, and 2 percent is in the form of ice, only 3 percent is fresh and useable by human beings and animals. Available on both the surface and ground, this freshwater is under immense pressure following the ballooning of the global population of people and animals. Besides drinking, cleaning utensils, and bathing, water is useful for irrigation, recreational facilities, and hydroelectric power generation. Basing on the sensitivity of each of these activities, mechanisms need to be devised to ensurethe availability of the right quality and quantity of water. Achieving precisely that through the design proposal of a competent car wash water recycling system is the primary mission of this project.

Customer Requirements Survey

            In many cities around the world, there is a continued increase in water demand. Factors such as growing population, increasing agricultural needs, need for more electricity generation, and industrial use of water have contributed a lot to the increase in water demand. Combined with pollution, water scarcity can have severe negative impacts on the environment, and thus, interfere with the economic growth of a city or nation at large. For this particular exercise, I surveyed to ascertain the extent to which the residents in Los Angeles City’s low to middle-income levels required freshwater resources to meet their daily needs. The survey involved the use of questionnaire wherein I sought to find out how frequent they experienced water shortages. To the city’s municipal council, I sent my questionnaires to seek answers to which water sources they used for meeting the city dwellers’ water needs.

Also, I sought to know the kind of plans the council had put in place to address the current perennial water shortages. I also conducted door to door interviews with low-income households. The combined results from this survey revealed that low-income residents with Los Angeles City were the worst hit by water shortages. As a result, most of them were not only storing the limited water they could get in large containers to ensure long term sustainability of the scarce resource, but they were also using it sparingly. Naturally, they had sacrificed leisurely water usage like swimming and bathtubs. It is interesting to note that Los Angeles is one of America’s cities with a heavy presence of vehicle traffic – meaning the city has plenty of car wash centers through which water gets lost after being used for car cleaning purposes. It is against this backdrop that I saw it fit to design a car wash water recycling system that can go a long way in addressing the water shortage problems for low-income dwellers. Even though the system is designed with Los Angeles in mind, I made it in such a way that it can easily be replicated in any other world city with little to no modifications.

Kano Model

Following the results of my customer requirements survey described above, I came up with the Kano model for this project. Primarily, a Kano Model categorizes a given product’s attributes basing on their perception by customers and their impact on customer satisfaction. Professor Noriaki Kano first devised this model in 1982 (Geisler, 2016). Basing on the Kano model that I came up with, I was better placed at prioritizing the specific strategies for addressing the water shortage challenges in ways that are most relevant to the affected city dwellers. For my Kano to produce the most desired results, I assigned it three key attributes. First, the threshold attributes which highlighted the necessary and reliable water supply levels I intend for my target customers to achieve when the proposed car wash water recycling system runs at maximum efficiency. The minimum daily water supply level I set for my order was 20 liters per household where the occupants are still single and 100 liters in those households where the occupants are married people raining families.

Secondly, I factored into my Kano model the performance attributes or satisfiers. These elements focusedon ensuring that the customers who will make use of the car water wash system I am proposing draw the maximum possible enjoyment from using the recycled water. To attain this effect in practical terms, I intend to add a water desalination system and chlorination system to my recycling plant. Finally, my project’s Kano model also comprises of excitement attributes or simply delighters. In essence, these are the project elements through which my car water wash recycling system’s competitive edge can be immensely boosted. It is not a must for these kinds of features to be included at my project’s design stage, but incorporating them at the implementation stage will make my target customers more delightful in making of the water recycling system am designing in this project. Examples of these features include a more extensive water storage tank and an automated self-control mechanism for the system. Considering all the three attributes described above, the Kano model that best covers the customers’ requirements for my project is as shown below.

QFD (component level)

            In any technical design of an engineering project, the component level Quality Function (QFD) is most useful in the identification of crucial features that deserve to be detailed on the drawings. These key features then flow down into level 3 QFD activities for use in designing the system. According to Zaneti, Etchepare & Rubio (2013), QFD is effective in defining the customer needs and can convert the indicated requirements into specified engineering details and plan to thereby enhancing production of items that aligns with customer needs. Since small water wastages are involved in a typical car wash facility, the system I intend to come up with will carry out the water recycling and treatment processes on a series of small batches of wastewaters. As per the information I collected during my customer requirements survey, the typical working hours of the system I am proposing will be between 8 am to 9 pm. Therefore, this facility can work continuously for 13 hours. The overall time required for the wastewater to pass through the various treatment units is 1.5 hours, implying that the water can be treated in about seven batches.

            To effectively design the various components of my recycling plant, I will rely heavily on the preliminary data I gathered from my customer requirements survey.

Maximum number of cars to be washed per day = 15

Maximum number of bikes to be washed per day = 10

Water required to wash a single car = 100

Water needed to wash a single bike = 50

Water required to wash all vehicles per day = 2000 liters

Moving with the assumption that there will be negligible water wastages in the course of my system’s operations,

Total wastewater collected per day = 2000 liters

Water to be used for preliminary cleaning = 1000 liters

Water to be used for final washing = 1000 liters

Wastewater volume to be treated per day = 1000 liters

Considering seven batches, the amount of water to be operated on every batch, the amount of water to be recycled per batch = 1000/7 = 143 liters.

Therefore, to treat 143 litters, the preferred capacity of storage tanks = 220 liters.

Hence, 220-liter capacity water storage tanks will be used in the various treatment units within my car water wash recycle system. Additionally, I intend to use 500-liter capacity sintex tanks for the collection of wastewater after leaving the car wash unit and also for collecting the recycled water. Briefly, the main components of my recycling plant will consist of screens, a collection tank, a skimming tank, a sedimentation tank, a sand filter, a pipe connection for the addition of soda ash, and lime. It is worth mentioning that the primary goals of implementing QFD for this project are to prioritize the spoken and unspoken customer needs, translation of these needs into technical characteristics and specifications, build and delivering of a quality car wash water recycle system by focusing everything towards customer satisfaction.

Specification

            I intend for the car wash recycle system am designing to work in a sophisticated yet straightforward mechanism. From the car wash unit, water and the solution are released with pressure from the nozzle. This water can either be released individually or with the solution. This gadget then discloses a power-driven rotary brush that is mounted in a handle with water and soap, inlet means, and a means of discharging the wastewater. With the help of an electrical motor, the sponge type of brush to be fitted will be rotated to do the car washing activity. During the rinsing stage of the vehicles, the pressure and speed of water flowing through the nozzle can easily be controlled. Further, it will be possible to separate the solution and water by the use of the two different pipes that come in the nozzle through the car wash unit. At the end of one car wash exercise, a vehicle can be rinsed by cutting down the supply of soap or detergent. A typical car wash unit is as shown below.

            To calculate the pressure of the flowing water and the solution, I intend to make use of Bernoulli’s principle with the help of the equation of continuity. For powering the car wash pump, I will make use of a 12 volts’ dc battery. The outlet of the nozzle flow will be controlled by the spring and trigger (Janik & Kupiec, 2017). As earlier mentioned, the car wash water recycling plant I am proposing will consist of primary components such as screens, collection tanks, skimming tanks, sedimentation tanks, sand filters, pipe connections. Each of these components will have well-specified functions. The screening components will offer protection to my recycling plant’s downstream units against large debris. In so doing, screening improves the operational efficiency of the latter stages. Collection tanks will be fitted on both outlets of my car wash unit. These tanks will mainly collect from either of the outlets where the water will be stored briefly to allow for sedimentation. Sedimentation will aim at removing the suspended solids from the water by use of the force of gravity. In still water, solid impurities will settle to the bottom parts of the storage tank.

The system I intend to design will function in such a way that it will allow for the removal of more than 70 percent of the suspended impurities. Within my design, I will also incorporate skimming tanks. Water from the collection tanks can safely be pumped into these tanks with the aid of half horsepower pumps in batches of 220 liters each. Skimming tanks will be used to help with the removal of oil and grease from the car wash wastewater. Through specially designed pipes connected to the main pipe, lime and soda ash will be added to the car wash wastewater as droplets. Lime and soda ash will react with the calcium and magnesium salts in the wastewater to form insoluble magnesium hydroxide and calcium carbonate precipitates.

Morphological Chart

Primarily, a morphological chart is a table that is based on the functional analysis of an engineering project. On the chart’s left side, functions of the project’s components are listed, whereas, on the right-hand side, various mechanisms that can be used to perform the services are drawn. Necessarily, morphological charts are visual aids that will help me solidify my ideas on the car wash water recycling system that I am designing. For this particular project, the corresponding morphological chart is as shown below.

Concept Development

For a long time, wastewater from car washing facilities has always been going to waste. To the amusement of scientists, wastewater from these facilities is not entirely damaged; when appropriately treated, this water can still be used for many functions geared towards ensuring better human living conditions bearing in mind the high consumption rates of water. To manage the wastewater from car wash facilities, the recycling plant I intend to design will run semi-automatically. To achieve more accurate results, I will employ powerful reagents such as Tanfloc SL and Sodium Hypochlorite.

In developing the concept behind this project, I was significantly guided by the 3 Rs of the environment. That is, reduce, reuse, and recycle. The three ideas have been around for quite some years but not so many people are aware of them. Every year, Los Angeles car wash facilities lose more than a million liters of wastewaters. If no appropriate steps are taken, these huge wastages of water are bound to interfere with the hydrological balance of the earth’s water resources on both the surface and in the ground. To circumvent these unfortunate eventualities, I endeavor to use the Reduce concept of the environment to make sure that the parts I purchase for use in the implementation of my project idea require less plastic packaging to limit the amount of wastes that I will release to the environment.

On the reuse concept, my project will make use of reusable components to check on the cumbersomeness of the project and also minimize the usage of single-use bags. Examples of these components include reusable water bottles and storage tanks. Thirdly, I will incorporate the idea of recycling into my project. To this end, the various pieces of glass, paper, and plastic that will be applied in the implementation of my project idea will be processed into new products with the use of few natural resources and a low amount of energy. It should also be noted that this project’s principal idea is premised around the concept of recycling wastewater resources emanating from car wash centers. Through the successful implementation of the recycling plant, there will be significant cuts on the amounts of water wastages especially in major cities around the world.

Weighted Evaluation of Concept

While going about this process, I intend to weigh the above-described concept ideas for this project to determine their relative merits and demerits. To conduct a successful concept evaluation, I would first rank a set of criteria on which each of the above three concepts is rated. Secondly, I made a reference design that was, in turn, used as a baseline against which comparisons were made more quickly. Thirdly, the evaluation process required me to craft a mechanism through which I would rank them above three concepts against the reference baseline concerning the criteria that are considered both effective and efficient by international best standards. For proper evaluation of the above concept ideas, I made use of the universally accepted five-point scale which sufficiently provides excellent concept measurements without being overly precise. This scale is as described below.

On this scale, negative numbers indicate a worse performance, whereas positive numbers suggest a superior performance. Because each of the project concepts is quite vaguely defined, it was quite a long and challenging task. Nonetheless, I assessed every conceptconcerning every set requirement. For ease of conducting this assessment, I grouped all the elements according to the desired characteristics of my car wash water cycling system. With the PRS in place as well as the three project concepts, reference design, and a set of weighted concepts, I performed a thorough evaluation of my concepts with the use of a weighted decision matrix, which is a chart that captured every aspect of my assessment. The graphical version of my results is as shown below from which it is clear that the worst scoring concept was the Reuse concept.

Drawing Part & Assembly

It was earlier pointed out that the car wash water recycling system I intend to develop comprises of such parts as screens, collection tank, skimming tank, sedimentation tank, sand filter, pipe connection for the addition of soda ash and lime. Each of these parts is interconnected in such a manner that the overall system maintains a relatively high level of operational efficiency (Rubio & Zaneti, 2019). The various components and assembly of my intended project idea areas represented in the drawing below.

Apply Design Analysis Tools Using Solidworks /Ansys

I found the design analysis tools of Solidworks particularly crucial in coming up with the 3D view of some of the critical components of this project. Some of the parts that I came up with by the use of these tools are shown below. The first one is for the skimming tank

The Solidworks representation of the spray nozzle of the carwash unit of my project is as shown below

The Solidworks image shown below illustrates the summary I made regarding the water recycling and treatment part of my project

Cost Analysis

The value of the recycled and treated water from the system I am proposing is majorly determined by the use to which it will be put upon my project’s full implementation. The type and scope of benefits and cost of arising from the car wash water recycling would vary based on location in which it will be practically implemented. That notwithstanding, it is essential to observe that car water wash recycling processes, and the value of the water produced tend to cost higher in places where natural water supply is insufficient, for example, the low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles City. Therefore, the breakdown for the anticipated total cost of my project is as shown below.

Cost of two sintex tanks of 500 liters’ capacity = $4,000

Cost of the half horsepower CRI pump = $2,200

Cost of 3 water drums of 220 liters’ capacity = $2,400

Cost of 10 meters PVC pipes = $500

Total project cost = $(4000 + 2,200 + 2,400 + 500)

                              = $9,100.

Conclusion

The ever-rising water scarcity cases and water costs have made water recycling a basic necessity in nearly in any jurisdiction around the world through any means necessary.  The implementation of the car wash water recycling system that I am proposing will lead to improved water quality being reused in car washing operations. Additionally, recycling of this water has the potential of lowering sewer discharge fees for most city dwellers. Moreover, recycling of car wash wastewater significantly reduces the burden of sewage treatment plants, and thus, protecting the environment against pollution. Therefore, the proposal for a wastewater recycling plant in car wash facilities is beneficial not only in the economic sense but also from an environmental protection viewpoint.

References

Anderson, J. (2013). The environmental benefits of water recycling and reuse. Water Science and Technology: Water Supply, 3(4), 1-10.

Geisler, E. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 5,004,536. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Janik, H., & Kupiec, A. (2017). Trends in Modern Car Washing. Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, 16(6).

Rubio, J., & Zaneti, R. N. (2019). Treatment of washrack wastewater with water recycling by advanced flocculation–column flotation. Desalination and Water Treatment, 8(1-3), 146-153.

Zaneti, R. N., Etchepare, R., & Rubio, J. (2013). Car wash wastewater treatment and water reuse–a case study. Water science and technology, 67(1), 82-88.