Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/513849
SHOWCASE May-June 2015 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 25 | graPhene technology gets us$ 6 million funDing Water and wastewater treatment company Arvia Technology has secured £4 million (US$ 6 million) in funding for a series of demonstration installations in industrial treatment facilities of its proprietary organics removal system based on the carbon allotrope, graphene. Arvia's process removes organics, emerging contaminants and micro-pollutants from wastewater and is regenerated in-situ in the Arvia's organics destruction cell (ODC) process. ODC comprises adsorption of emulsifed organics onto dispersed graphene particles that are subsequently oxidized by passing an electric current through the settled bed of graphene. The technology was spun-out of Manchester University's School of Chemical Engineering. Arvia chief executive Mike Lodge said, "We now have in place the secure fnancial backing required to strengthen our team and launch Arvia's game-changing products into the water sector." "We have numerous test units to deploy into the market and we are looking for early adopters to collaborate with Arvia in applying this technology, which is changing the boundaries of how water is treated." The ODCs can be confgured according to the organics concentrations in a given waste stream to manage a range of fow volumes from a few cubic metres a day to over 2,000 cubic metres an hour the company said. Arvia said it is now identifying companies in the industrial, pharmaceutical, herbicide and chemical sectors with problematic wastes. The feld trial units can treat concentrations as low as 1 part per billion organics and fow of up to 2 m 3 /h. According to Arvia, its units can remove and oxidize low, trace toxic, and problematic pollutants such as slug pesticides and endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in the pharmaceutical industry and personal care products. Kuwait Plans uPgraDes with ge membranes Kuwait's Sulaibiya Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation Plant is to be upgraded with GE's water reuse technology. GE will provide ZeeWeed 1000 submerged hollow-fbre ultrafltration (UF) membranes and AG LF low-fouling reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in an upgrade that will increase the plant's production capacity from 375,000 m³/d to 600,000 m³/d. The expansion – undertaken by infrastructure developer, Kharaf National – will make it the largest such facility in the world according to GE. The ZeeWeed 1000 UF that will be installed at the Sulaibiya wastewater treatment facility is ideal for retrofts and large plants said GE. The technology is applicable in direct fltration, coagulation, tertiary fltration, multi-media flter retrofts and pretreatment for RO. It brings a high-effciency design with low capital, operating and lifecycle costs the company added. The water produced meets stringent water standards, while using fewer chemicals, and producing less residual waste compared to conventional wastewater treatment systems, GE said. GE said its AG LF series thin-flm RO membrane elements are characterized by high fow, high sodium chloride rejection and low-fouling surfaces. It said the membranes require fewer cleaning cycles compared to conventional brackish membranes, and can beneft from increased time between cleanings by up to 50%. lg nanoh2o hits the bracKish marKet Reverse osmosis membrane specialist LG NanoH2O has moved into the brackish water market with a new range of membranes scheduled for release later this year. The new membranes comes in two types: an energy saving range for use at 150 psi and a "high rejection" range for use at 225 psi and which is divided into three grades spanning a permeate fow rate range of 39.7 m 3 /d to 58.3 m 3 /d. The company says the high rejection membranes are "well suited for high-quality permeate requirements, second pass systems." aDonics launches liquiD-liquiD Desalination France-based Adionics has launched a smart desalination solution, which is able to remove specifc salts to address the growing demand coming from the oil and gas and foodstuff industries as well as mining. The company's Smartex system is derived from Adonic's AquaOmnes technology which it unveiled last May followed by industrial variants for brines this year. AquaOmnes removes salts from water by liquid-liquid extraction whatever the salinity without the scaling barrier the company claims. Its frst pilot unit is being implemented in the United Arab Emirates to desalt brines. Adionics, said Smartex, was "designed to remove selectively cations and/or anions while running at ambient pressure". It claimed also that the technology had "very low energy consumption for any salinity grade thanks to the liquid-liquid extraction approach". Adionics' executive vice president of sales and marketing, Thierry Darde, said: "In the oil and gas business for instance, our solution is able to treat highly saline produced water and remove species such as calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium or sulphates, when others such as sodium or chloride are left in the treated water. This new approach in the world of enhanced oil recovery is expected to become a major breakthrough for this industry. Similar developments are to take place in other industries such as mining." Organic-harming: "game changing products."