Innovative technologies and environmental sustainability in the pharmaceutical wastewater treatment at Ascoli Piceno Pfizer plant

This paper is based on an internship experience lasting 450 hours at the Pfizer company in Ascoli Piceno and focuses on sustainability and the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater produced by the plant itself. A first part is dedicated to the description of the plant and its functionality, highlighting the results obtained from the pilot test and the fundamental processes of the real wastewater treatment plant. A second part, the focus of this paper, concerns the reuse of treated water considering different possible options and evaluating the economic and environmental sustainability of each of them. According to these parameters and comparing the different alternatives, the option that seems to be the best is defined. The aim of treated water recovery is to reduce the consumption of groundwater, of which Pfizer makes great use, that is influenced by the climate changes and the precipitation scarcity with consequences on the functionality of the systems and their reliability