Dutch water company PWN Technologies has demonstrated its 120,000 m3/day Andijk III drinking water plant using suspended ion exchange and ceramic membrane filtration technology.
Costing 60 million euros, this is the largest installation using the company’s ceramic membrane technology, following a trial with utility PUB in Singapore (1,200 m3/day) and a smaller trial currently underway with UK utility South West Water of 140 m3/day (see WWi story).
Andijk III will use the company’s Suspended Ion Exchange (SIX) technology to remove natural and organic materials, as well as sulphates and nitrates from surface water.
The major difference between this ceramic membrane installation and others is the use of PWN Technologies’ CeraMac: using 192 membrane vessels (supplied by Japanese company Metawater) grouped together in a single vessel.
PWN Technologies claim this "block" design enables the operator to literally push it harder and enable an increased backwash of up to 5 bar, to clean the membranes, with a downtime per backwash of only a few seconds.
“This is a major step forward,” said Martien den Blanken, CEO of PWN Water supply company in North Holland. “Andijk III is a new standard in treating difficult surface water.”
Cindy Wallis-Lage, president of global water business at Black & Veatch, called Andijk III an excellent example of "disruptive innovation", adding: “This is what makes a difference. It takes a journey to make innovation move faster: integration and sharing of knowledge as well as collaboration.”
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