Saving Water from Waste in Chemical Plants

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Saving Water from Waste in Chemical Plants

Futuris explores how new technologies can help recycle the water used in chemical plants to make these more environmentally friendly

Producingchemicalsand plastics indeed requires a lot of fresh water to cool down industrial processes, and this water is not always handy.

Our reporter Denis Loctier visited a Dow Benelux plastics plant on the southern coast of the Netherlands. This seaside plant cannot pump water from the ground: it must buy it from a supplier located dozens of kilometers away, uses it once and then pours it out into the sea.

"We need approximately 20 million cubes annually of fresh water. And that's a bit of a problem here, because the whole area is actually connected to the sea, and all the ground water is brackish or salty, even," said Niels Groot, water specialist at Dow Benelux.

Salty or dirty water can damage installations, and for now it is cheaper for companies to buy fresh water than to recycle it. A Europeanresearchproject - calledE4WATER- wants to change that.

An Evides pilot plant in the Netherlands is using various methods to cleanse water from salt and waste.

"First we try to remove the suspended solids; that's done by the lamella separator. And then it goes to two different technologies for taking the salts out of the water," explains Evides water treatment specialist Wilbert van den Broek.

Meanwhile at theVITOinstitute in Antwerp, Belgium, researchers are testing improved nano-filters and a new membrane technology that could make industrial water recycling much more efficient - and commercially viable.

"With conventional membrane filtration systems you can come up with water recovery of 50% to 70%. With this technology, you can expand the water recovery to 90-95%," says Peter Cauwenberg, water technology specialist atVITO.

These membrane systems filter the water vapor and leave out the salt. They have a limited lifespan, so making them more efficient could get theindustryto recycle more water, save costs, and help the environment.

"There are many advantages for the industry," says Christina Jungfer, technical microbiologist atDECHEMAand E4WATER project coordinator. "First of all it's more environmentally friendly, because you can save water; it gives you independence from fresh water sources. And through new technologies, you can also save energy. So it's a win-win situation for the industry and for nature."

Source: Euronews

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