Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1019735
September 2018 Water. desalination + reuse In Site 27 • We enhance the e ciency of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination. The strength of the technol- ogy is in its simplicity: As you feed salty water through an RO system, the brine becomes saltier and saltier as it moves through the membranes, and scales begin forming on the • nal membranes. It takes several hours for the crystals to reach a critical size. Rotec technology reverses the - ow so that what the last membrane now becomes the • rst, clearing the crystals. The • rst patent covers the technology, and the second patent is how to implement it: - ow reversal, and block rotation tapered - ow for two and three-stage RO systems, creating a non-steady state RO process. • The technology grew out of research conducted at Ben Gurion University in Israel by Dr Jack Gilron and professor Eli Korin. It was developed as part of the university's tech exchange o ce, and received a incubator grant from the Israeli government. The company, Rotec, was established in 2009, and holds several approved and pending patents on its reverse osmosis - ow reversal • The incubator years supported the company to develop an industrial-scale pilot project with Israeli utility Mekorot at Eliat Desalination Plant. The project, which was desalinating brackish water with salinity levels of 8,000 parts per million, achieved an improvement in recovery of 15 per cent. It completed in 2011. • In 2012, the company sold its • rst commercial installation to Vitens, the largest drinking water company in The Netherlands. The client was running a demonstration plant that used deep well injection as a solution for its brine; however, this restricted it to a low recovery rate since the local regulations prohibit use of chemicals for deep aquifer injection. Rotec retro• t- ted the demonstration plant, whose capacity was 1,200 m3/d, in 2012, achieving an increase in recovery of 20 per cent. The technology has since been licensed to Cola Cola, and Suez. • Rotec won the Rising Star Award at TechXchange at Singapore International Water Week 2018 for entrepreneurial - air, perseverance, and developing its technology into a commercial product. We worked with the Singapore water utility Public Utilities Board (PUB) on a munici- pal wastewater pilot project, which took secondary e¡ uent to ultra• ltration membranes, and then to our RO system. PUB was very impressed at the recovery rates we achieved, and asked us to submit a re- search and development proposal. This resulted in Rotec retro• tting Kranji Water Reclamation Plant, a two-stage RO plant of 450,000 m3/d, in 2015, with the goal to increase recovery by 13 per cent. The entire retro• t took 12 days, with the plant o¡ ine for four days, and we succeeded in producing 20 per cent more product water which PUB sells to industry. The retro• t cut the frequency of clean-in-place cycles, and achieved a 60 per cent reduction in brine. We had the privilege of connecting with the right partners, and won the award for the technology and im- plementation. We have a seal of excellence from PUB, a leading global utility, which supports our representatives worldwide when promoting the technology. • The technology is available in three products: A super-high recovery RO system with - ow reversal embedded; customised retro• t packages for RO plants; and an engineering package, where the technology is implemented by a third party. Q & A N OA M P E R L M U T E R "The strength of the technology is its simplicity" Reverse osmosis fl ow reversal fi rm Rotec won the Rising Star Award at TechXchange at Singapore International Water Week 2018 How did the company start out? Where was the technology fi rst piloted? And your fi rst commercial project? What does the Rising Star Award mean for you? What is your commercial off ering? How does the technology work? Rotec's technology reverses the flow of salty water through the reverse osmosis membrane trains, reducing the incidence of scaling without chemicals N OA M P E R L M U T E R "The strength of the technology