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Team 1

Team Members

Faculty Advisor

Clifford Otis
Cydney Caterino
Todd Stueber

Timothy Vadas

Sponsor

Pfizer

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Pfizer's facility in Groton, CT uses a significant amount of water to meet site demand for consumption and onsite utility demand for steam and chilled water generation: about 225 million gallons per year over the last five years. Pfizer requested a report determining water use by building, and wished to identify opportunities for water use reduction which can sustain demand while maintaining a safe and effective workplace that complies with regulatory requirements. This is an interdisciplinary project, and we worked with students from mechanical engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering to address Pfizer's concerns, using our respective backgrounds to develop different approaches to solve the problem. In addition to assessing the water savings which may be realized through the installation of updated appliances, such as faucet aerators and newer toilets, the environmental engineering subgroup developed a proposal which investigates the functionality and feasibility of a reclamation system to treat and reuse water which is currently discharged into the Thames river. This required an understanding of the water pathways on Pfizer's campus, and the volume of water which would need to be treated. It was also necessary to know the chemistry of the water we proposed treating, and the required level of purity for reuse. If a coagulation/flocculation process followed by rapid sand filtration is used to reclaim the wastewater generated by the utilities systems, it may be possible to reduce Pfizer's water demand by as much as 61 million gallons of water per year: over a quarter of the annual water consumption.