The glycol collection and recycling facility at Syracuse Hancock International Airport includes what the team says is the world’s first on-airport glycol recycling evaporator that can treat spent aircraft deicing fluid as low as 0.25% glycol to water. The five-step recycling process involves dual evaporators, filtration and distillation.

Each year the facility will remove from 5 million to 7 million gallons of water normally bound for a wastewater treatment facility, clean it into reusable water and produce up to 550,000 gallons of aviation deicing fluid.

This will cut up to 16.5 million lb of carbon annually compared with traditional waste disposal and fluid creation. Based on current average flight volumes, the airport will only use about 50% of total capacity, creating opportunities to extend these services to nearby airports in upstate New York.

The team employed strategic layouts, such as early operation of the low-content evaporator, to expedite construction and mitigate challenges associated with limited storage capacity for collected glycol effluent. The $19.4-million project finished on budget and on schedule in 18 months before the region’s first heavy snow.