Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1056083
10 Interview December 2018 Water. desalination + reuse I started US Filter with a secretary and ende d up with 26,000 employees, in 130 countries, and $5.6 billion in sales. I have zero technical ability; none. Never took an engineering class. It just looked to me like it was a business that nobody tried to organise and consolidate. It looked to me like the customer was looking at seven, eight different vendors and getting confused. Water is a very, very big market. People have been treating water since the Ancient Egyptians, so it's not like people are lining up for new appli - cations, but in many, many, many applica- t i o n s , w h e r e m e m - branes aren't able to do the job the users would like them to, PolyCera can fix that. In the short term, we are interested in food and bev - erage, and industrial wastewater. Like any new technology, we're looking first at places where it fits the easiest. One of the things I've been p r e t t y v o c a l o n i s a s y s t e m s approach. You have to have equip - ment, and design the way you want the membranes to work. You really have to be full-service, if you're going to be successful in the long-term and to be big. This is the model we used at US Filter. The customer gives you a specification for the water qual - ity they want, and you meet it. And it's up to you what you do, which membranes you use, not up to them. PolyCera is more driven to the technology at this point. And the reason I'm there is okay, let's assume they really do have this breakthrough technology. What do you do with it? The way the spectrum works is that the membrane is proven, t e s t e d , p r o t o t y p e d , worked out, installed, and measured, and eve - ryone knows what it can and cannot do; the next step is to work in the ser- vice side. They are prob- ably a couple of years from the service side. The water business is the big- gest business in the world. Period. A lot of people raise their eyebrows when I say that. But when you look around, everything is water-based. If you have a big reputation, a big company, a billion dollar company with the insurances, if you have the obvious weight, there are very few cus - tomers who just wouldn't rather pay by the gallon and let you do all the work, because water is not their business. It's fascinating because it should be so obvious. The tiny little bit of water that we have on land is constantly recycled. We might as well come to grips with that, there's not a thing we're ever, ever going to be able to do about it. And do it smartly. Treat the water before you discharge it, desalt the water, so you're not putting pressure on your aque - ducts. One of the things I'm betting on is that there will be more desalination. In Califronia, they are just flat running out of options. And PolyCera can be involved in that." Richard 'Dick' Heckmann, founder in 1990 of US Filter, a business he sold nine years later for $8.2 billion, tells Water. desal + reuse why the water business needs consolidating, why he's backing PolyCera Membranes, and why California is 'the stupidest state on the planet' 'The water business needs consolidating' You have to have a systems approach if you're going to be successful and big The new kids on the membrane circuit appear to have a compelling offer for customers have climbed higher into the mountains - even at this high altitude the California landscape is parched and hay-coloured - and have passed through the almond tree groves that line the roads to Wasco. The Wasco Treatment Plant is a customer of PolyCera. It's operator, MembranePRO Ser- vices, became the first business to be spun off by Water Planet when it was sold to a group of private investors in 2017. The plant takes wastewater from numerous industrial clients in the vicinity, including oil and gas opera - tors, and food producers, and is using PolyC- era membranes as a pre-treatment to reverse osmosis (RO) for water reuse (for more on Wasco Treatment Plant, see page 16). Ninety-five per cent of the water processed at the facility is reclaimed for reuse, mainly for agricultural irrigation. Even the brine is sold to a nearby mud festival. The facility is poised to double capacity from 210,000 to 420,000 US gallons (795 to 1,590 m3/d). It's a great showcase for PolyCera's prod - uct: the pre-treatment system has reduced the energy consumption of the RO by 40 per cent, and has cut by 19 per cent the amount of chemicals used in the process. Commercialisation The company is targeting hard-to-treat indus- trial wastewater, including customers in oil and gas and food and beverage. This year, it introduced new product in its Titan ultrafil- tration (UF) and Hydro UF ranges. And new nano-filtration and reverse osmosis products are in development and scheduled to hit the market in 2019. The company has installed 80 systems, and is running 27 pilot projects - the new kids on the membrane circuit appear to have a compelling offer for customers with tough-to-handle wastewaters. But as is well known, effective - even a proven effective - new technology by no means guarantees a smooth growth trajectory. P e r h a p s i t ' s t h i s t h o ug h t t h a t s p a r k s Marshall's frustration as we head for home. Leaving Wasco, the cue from his GPS navigator comes a beat too late: we're about to exit the highway in the wrong direction when Marshall takes a split-second decision to undercut a vast semi-trailer by a terrifyingly narrow mar- gin. He calculates speed and distance, juding with pinpoint accuracy, before flooring the accelerator. If he runs PolyCera Membranes with the same audacity with which he drives his SUV, it may yet replicate the US Filter story (see right). Dick Heckmann, PolyCera Membranes, board director