Episode 45: An Interview with Chandler Mancuso, MacDermid Envio Solutions

Environmental responsibility in manufacturing has never been greater. In 2020, MacDermid Enthone Industrial Solutions (Waterbury, Conn.) launched a new business — MacDermid Envio Solutions (Rock Hill, S.C.) which focuses on helping customers profitably reduce their environmental impact through proprietary water treatments and materials recycling solutions. In this installment of On the Line, we talk with Chandler Mancuso, technical director with MacDermid Envio, to hear about the company’s solutions.

PF: MacDermid Envio Solutions was launched in 2020 to help customers reduce their environmental impact through various solutions. Can you give us some background on the business and your specific focus in relation to MacDermid Enthone’s other offerings?

CM: MacDermid Envio was a culmination of acquisitions, that it allowed us to gain and harbor the technologies and the capabilities that we have today — as well as the geographies that we cover. Of course, those acquisitions and the capabilities that we want to ultimately implement were  strategic, so that we can help or supplement our existing customer base within MacDermid Enthone, as well as Element Solutions as a whole, and provide them wastewater treatment solutions that fit their needs. That’s, of course, specific to the surface finishing market and in relationship with MacDermid Enthone. We have tailored a lot of our solutions to fit the surface finishing market, and to complement surface finishing processes and the wastewater generated from them.

PF: What are some of the solutions MacDermid Envio currently offers?

CM: I would say that we have kind of four key pillars, if you will, or offerings that we provide. The first is our equipment and our equipment systems including chemical precipitation systems — storage tanks, treatment tanks, clarifiers and sludge management systems. Then, we have our water reuse and water recycling, and zero liquid discharge capabilities — that includes ultra filtration and reverse osmosis, even evaporation technologies.

Then, we have our EnvioCARE services and operations. This is everything from simple preventive maintenance visits, all the way to contracted operations, where MacDermid Envio employees actually go to the facility every day and operate the customer system on behalf of the customer.

We also have our EnvioTECH units, which is our metal recycling units which complement our process chemistries and our customers’ process lines.

Finally, we have EnvioVIEW, which is our digital solutions portfolio. This allows us to provide our customers with automatically generated reports, alarm notifications and web dashboards — capabilities associated with data collected from their wastewater system.

Those are the four main key offerings that we provide at Envio. As you can see, we really try to provide a very comprehensive solution to our customers and cover a lot of different aspects of wastewater treatment.

PF: What are some of the ways that finishers can benefit from updating their wastewater management system interface?

CM: For those who have interfaces or controllers on their wastewater treatment system that are getting fairly old in age, one of the significant developments that we have seen in wastewater treatment systems in recent years is the control logic and the technological side of the treatment systems. So, an upgrade will allow for a more comprehensive collection of data and larger data sets, as well as much better communication between the wastewater system and some of the other options that we have for technological solutions.

For example, with more upgraded controllers, we are able to remotely connect to the customer system and then troubleshoot their system remotely. We can see what they’re seeing on their controller and therefore we can diagnose problems and execute solutions much faster because we’re doing it remotely as opposed to having to work over the phone or have somebody come on-site.

This really enables them to take full advantage of the EnvioVIEW capabilities that we have to offer. The more robust and complete that those data sets are, then the more beneficial that something like EnvioVIEW can be for the customers. If we’re able to send them notifications associated with out-of-spec situations for their wastewater system — for example, their level sensor getting too high in a tank, or some sort of exceedance on their wastewater treatment discharge — then we can notify them very quickly. This allows them to diagnose and troubleshoot problems faster.

It also allows them to take advantage of all the data that their wastewater system is producing. It can assess how their wastewater system is behaving currently, identify inefficiencies and really capitalize on that data so they can make positive changes in their wastewater system.

But, it really all starts with the interface and with the controller — making sure that you have those technological capabilities in your system to allow us to be able to provide those digital solutions.

PF: In your experience, what percentage of finishers are using antiquated systems for managing wastewater?

CM: I think it is a fairly high percentage because you can kind of define antiquated in a number of ways.

Of course, the primary definition of antiquated is probably that the equipment is just so old, that it has lost some level of functionality, even if that piece of equipment is still very appropriate for the customer’s particular situation or wastewater treatment dynamics. In these cases, simply upgrading or updating the equipment will provide a benefit just because the piece of equipment is too old and has lost some functionality.

Sometimes equipment lasts a very long time and the dynamics in a facility itself may change. Maybe they’ve changed processes on the production line; maybe their flows have significantly increased or maybe they’ve significantly decreased; maybe their permit has changed and therefore they have different discharge limitations that they have to meet. In these cases, a technology may not necessarily be as effective as it was at the time that it was implemented. And, therefore, a different type of solution or an upgrade solution may be beneficial.

Finally, a piece of technology might still function well, but there have just been so many technological advancements that the facility could capitalize on improvements in that technology and that would drive benefits for the customer.

You can define “antiquated” in all of these different ways — there are a significant percentage of systems out there that could benefit from some sort of update or upgrade one way or another.