Polyvinyl alcohol is a synthetic water soluble polymer. It is used in the manufacture of paper, textiles and a variety of coatings. It is white and odorless. A trinket or as a waste solution is supplied. PVA is used as an emulsion polymerization aid, as a protective colloid, to make polyvinyl acetate dispersions. The PVA recovery system helps recover 90 percent of the PVA from the residual liquid, which in turn saves 50 percent of the cost. PVA is used as a thread size formulation to achieve the required thread performance properties during weaving. Using 100 percent, PVA formulations for certain tissues significantly increase COD or BOD levels compared to starch and also present opportunities to recover and reuse size. The COD in PVA waste is very high and reached approximately 40,000ppm.

By recovering the PVA, the COD in wastewater is reduced by approximately 80 percent, the rest, which can easily be treated by an ETP plant. The recovered PVA is then sent to a pressurized sand filter where it forms a cake, which is then dissolved in acid to keep the PVA in liquid form.