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Case

Wastewater management

Water management

Reuse of industrial wastewater at a low cost

6. January 2021

Solution provider

Aquaporin

Aquaporin works to preserve the Earth’s most valuable resource – water – by combining advanced bioengineering, open innovation, and natural aquaporins, nature's own water purifiers, which they embed into water purification membranes and solutions.

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Challenge

As a result of water scarcity, many industries today are under increasing pressure from consumers, regulators and investors to shift towards a more sustainable use of water.

Solution

One of the strategies is Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD), in which all wastewater is cleaned and reused within a factory. ZLD strategies for minimising wastestreams are already possible but extremely resource consuming. By using forward osmosis, it is possible to extract very high quality water by only using a small fraction of the energy associated with evaporators and reduced CapEx via the utilisation of non-exotic materials for construction.

Results

The company Forward Water Technologies has developed an industrial wastewater treatment pilot plant, which uses Aquaporin Inside® forward osmosis membranes to clean and recycle water. Doing so has allowed them to demonstrate a wastewater volume reduction typically of 70 per cent and greater than 92 per cent in some applications. The pilot plant is currently operating with streams from oil & gas production. However, the learnings from this application can be transferred to other industries – e.g. the textile industry, which is one of the most water consuming and polluting industries. Using forward osmosis can, in some cases, lead to under 2 years payback

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