| AquaFit4Use |  |
 EUCETSA participates in the European research project AquaFit4Use. It is a collaborative FP7 project with 34 partners of which 65 % industrial participation. Research will be performed around water in the industry in the chemical, paper, textile and food sector. The project lasts 4 years (2008-2012).
The overall objectives are:
- the development and implementation of new, reliable, cost effective technologies, tools and methods for sustainable water supply, use and discharge
- mitigate environmental impact
- produce and apply water qualities in accordance with industrial own specifications from all possible sources
- contributing to a far going closure of the water cycle in an economical, sustainable and safe way
The heart of the project is the development of new technologies with a focus at biofouling and scaling prevention, the treatment of saline streams, disinfection and the removal of specific substances.
The task of EUCETSA is to elaborate a technology portfolio of emerging technologies. The information will be used for cross-sectorial solutions. EUCETSA will also help in the dissemination activities of the project.
www.aquafit4use.eu
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Technological portfolio
Water_management
New_water_treatment_technologies
Test cases
Midterm conference
End-congress
Final results
Technological portfolio
EUCETSA has performed a technological portfolio of innovative water technologies.
The portfolio aims to foster the contact between the industrial partners participating in the project and those technology providers offering innovative water treatment technologies. In addition, there are opportunities for companies for example to be represented as speakers at the AquaFit4Use trainings, workshops and congresses, or to organize a demonstration workshop.
The technological portfolio is a compilation of innovative technologies, most of them already on the market. We selected information of 53 products or technologies fitting in the scope of water in the industry. A further selection lead to 36 promising technologies. A report is available and further actions are planned.
You can find the technolgical portfolio on: http://www.aquafit4use.eu/downloads/
The complete report is available under "public results" and the each profile individually under "technologies".
Water management
Water Quality Management Tool
AquaFit4Use has developed a new framework for the representation, simulation and optimization of water networks: the Water Quality Management Tool.
The tool consists of a locally installed Windows application and a central database with models of industrial processes and water treatment options. Using the Windows application existing water networks can be visually modelled and you can search for a more optimal network by automated exploration of a number of alternative networks. Each alternative is associated with a financial cost.
Case studies are performed for the companies Alpro, Ben & Jerry’s (Unilever) and Holmen.
Water Impact Index
Life Cycle Assessment is a methodology for quantifying environmental impacts of products, processes or services considering each step of its life cycle, from primary resources extraction to waste elimination, and considering a wide spectrum of environmental impacts (climate change, ecosystem quality, human health, etc.).
Aquafit4Use project aims at optimizing water reuse in industry. Life Cycle Assessment will be used to check whether optimized solutions actually allow reducing environmental impacts generated by water treatment systems.
It is however essential to understand how environmental impacts generated by water use (or “water footprint”) are addressed in Life Cycle Assessment methodologies.
Then a new metric called “Water Impact Index” is proposed to characterize the water footprint of any product or process with a simplified single-indicator. Methodologies described and developed will be applied to partner’s case studies (companies Rieger and Tekstina).
New water treatment technologies
Many new water treatment technologies and concepts are investigated in AquaFiT4Use leading to the best solutions to produce the required water quality for reuse.
First pilot tests were performed with the Denutritor®. This new technology aims at reducing biofouling in water systems. Denutritor is a biofilter which removes substrates for microbial growth from water. The microorganisms grow preferentially in the filter and biofilm growth downstream Denutritor is prevented. The source of biofouling is thus removed. The first two weeks of pilot testing performed on effluents from chemical industry did show already a decrease of 70-90% in biofouling.
Test cases
New technologies or new treatment trains were investigated at different participating industrial partners
Chemical industry
BASF (Belgium): evaluation of MBR-technology
- 3 different MBR-technologies
- fouling reduction with polymers
- on-line fouling measurement
Perstop (Sweden): local reuse for cooling water and central reuse for boiler feed supply
- comparison of conventional activated sludge and MBR
- AOP: combination of UV and H2O2
- Denutritor and RO
Textile industry
Dividing streams based on machines (production lines ) or monitoring
Companies Tekstina en Svilanit (Slovenia)
Tests for water reuse:
- Low conc: UF + NF and/or AOP (UV/H2O)
- Mid conc: MBR added to remove organic material
- High conc: evapoconcentration + AOP
Food and Drink industry
- Nestlé Waters (France): evaluation of filter media for the removal of specific compounds
- Unilever/Ben & Jerry (the Netherlands): desinfection of rainwater for reuse by Denutritor/UV
- Alpro (Belgium): comparison of UF to sand filtration for reuse as cooling water
- WQMT in four factories
- Screening and optimization of CIP-processes
Midterm conference
The midterm conference took place in June 2010 at Oviedo in Spain. The presentations are available on the public part of the AquaFit4Use website under “results”.
In session 1 of the conference a methodology and a tool is presented for water quality management.
In session 3 advanced treatments are presented. The 3FM (Flexible Fibre Filter Module) is a high speed filtration device that can be substituted for sedimentation and sand filtration. Evapoconcentration is used for treatment of membrane concentrates. Crystallisation processes are used for softening. All this technologies are tested in the paper industry.
Other innovative technologies will be tested in the food, textile and chemical industry in the second half of the project.
End-congress
The final conference for AquaFit4Use is on 8th & 9th May 2012 in Bruges (Belgium). It is being organised in parallel to the Innovation for Sustainable Production Conference i-SUP2012 organised by VITO www.i-sup2012.org.
During the end-congress, the achievements of AquaFit4Use will be presented, as solutions for important questions around sustainable water use in the four most water-using industrial sectors: Chemistry, Paper, Textiles and Food.
For more information on the program and registration see the website of AquaFit4Use
Final results
The most important results of Aquafit4Use is the project made big steps forward to convince industrial end users for water reuse: a textile company that paints its towels using recycled water, several companies that now save more than 30% on energy and water, and a paper plant that has gone over fully to recycled eflluent for the entire plant.
The final results are summarized in a brochure of 28 pages with all involved technolgies and pilot cases:
http://www.aquafit4use.eu/userdata/file/Publications/FINAL%20BROCHURE-AquaFit4Use.pdf |
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