System for treating wash waste liquid, adapted for application in a continuous tunnel washing machine in the field of preclinical pharmaceutical research

A continuous tunnel washing system comprising:

• a wash chamber including a plurality of nozzles positioned to direct a washing liquid at objects within the wash chamber;
• an open top cylindrical wash tub having a substantially conical bottom and a wash waste drain outlet at a vertex of the substantially conical bottom, a tangential liquid suction outlet extending through a bottom portion of the wash tub and positioned to generate a rotational motion of any liquid in the wash tub, the wash tub being positioned under the wash chamber such that spent washing liquid drains into the wash tub through the open top;
• a centrifugal wash pump with an open impeller being fluidically connected to the tangential liquid suction outlet, wherein any liquid in the wash tub is caused to rotate as the liquid is drawn through the tangential liquid suction outlet by the centrifugal wash pump;
• an inline filtration assembly including a housing having an inlet fluidically connected to an outlet of the centrifugal wash pump and an outlet fluidically connected to the plurality of nozzles, a wedge-wire filter element being disposed within the housing between the inlet and outlet of the housing such that liquid entering the housing inlet passes through the wedge-wire filter element which captures debris as liquid flows to the outlet of the housing;
• and
• a flush valve controlling flow through an outlet located at a bottom of the housing to permit discharge of any captured debris.