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DEMOWARE Final Meeting

Last 23 and 24 of November took place the final meeting of DEMOWARE. The venue selected by the coordination team was Puy du Fou as the Reuse Colloque organized by Vendée Eau was taking place on the 25th of November. The attendants to the meeting shared the main results obtained in the ten demo sites that were part of DEMOWARE and established the work to be done in the coming weeks to prepare all the information required to complete the project. 

Vendée Colloque

Next Friday 25th November 2016 the Vendée Colloque entitled "Making water an inexhaustible resource" organised by Vendée Eau will take place in Le Puy du Fou (Vendée region, France). The event welcomes major players in the Wastewater Reuse sector from Europe and around the world. It marks the end of three years’ involvement on the part of Vendée Eau and Veolia in DEMOWARE and is at the heart of the latest French and European news in this innovative sector that is strategic for our future. Registrations and more information at: http://www.colloque-eau.fr/

Water Reuse Europe launch!

A new industry association for the European water reuse sector, Water Reuse Europe, has been formally launched today. The association offers a range of services for both commercial companies and public organisations involved in water reuse scheme design, operation, and regulation.

Water reuse is playing an increasingly important role in the pursuit of sustainable water management and recent years have seen significant growth in the number of industrial, agricultural, and municipal reuse schemes across Europe. However, the sector has lacked a single unifying body through which it can share best practice and develop a single voice on important issues. Water Reuse Europe provides the collective space within which these ambitions can be achieved. Its mission is to create a collective identity for the European water reuse sector and promote an innovative and dynamic industry.

Being a member of Water Reuse Europe will enable companies, public bodies, trade associations and research institutions to take advantage of stimulating opportunities for knowledge exchange, advocacy, and education. It will provide organisations with access to news and information about the latest developments in the reuse market and enable them to take advantage of specialist conferences, seminars, and workshops. 

Professor Paul Jeffrey, Professor of Water Management at Cranfield University and Chair of the WRE Board of Directors said: “Water reuse is going to be an important part of the mix of techniques which delivers sustainable and resilient water services. Europe now has an industry focused association dedicated to ensuring that the European water reuse sector is able to deliver innovative and safe water reuse solutions. With the global water reuse sector growing at about 20% per annum, Water Reuse Europe will also ensure that European products, services, and expertise are accessible to communities around the world. ”

Other advantages of being a member of Water Reuse Europe include access to the members directory, the abstracts library with more than 3000 entries, up to date news from the European and global water reuse sectors, technical reports and a database of water reuse schemes.

The new association will deliver a significant boost to Europe's water reuse sector according to Philippe Bréant, Projects Director at Veolia Research & Innovation and a member of the WRE Board of Directors. "Water Reuse Europe provides the support, ambition, and coordination needed to rapidly grow the European water reuse industry and create a truly global player in this increasingly

More information about how to become a member of Water Reuse Europe can be found at www.water-reuse.eu

Demoware regional workshop 13 September 2016 Bari

Next 13 September 2016, Bari will host a regional workshop organized by ARTI – Puglia Regional Agency for Technology and Innovation, in collaboration with IRSA CNR and Fiordelisi to promote the opportunities deriving from treated wastewater reuse in agriculture in Puglia.

More information

Tarragona site awarded as Environmental Leadear 2015

The water reuse scheme of Tarragona in the region of Catalonia (Spain), has been named Environmental Leader’s Project of the Year 2015. The Camp de Tarragona petrochemical complex and surrounding municipalities face competing water demands across the agricultural, industrial, and residential markets. The complex handles 19,000m3 of water per hour and previously used freshwater from the UNESCO-protected Ebro River Basin to power its industrial processes.

With the help of Dow’s reverse osmosis water treatment solutions, the Camp de Tarragona Advanced Water Reclamation Plant, operated by Veolia and AITASA and the government-owned water supplier, ACA (Water Catalan Agency), treats wastewater from the Spanish cities of Salou, Tarragona, and Vilaseca for reuse in the complex’s industrial operations.  This ultimately reduces strain on limited, local freshwater resources.

After pre-treatment, wastewater first passes through DOW FILMTEC™ BW30XFR-400/34i extra fouling resistant membranes before going through DOW FILMTEC™LE-440i[1] low-energy membranes in the second pass. The extra fouling resistance membranes increase equipment lifetime and reduce operational expenses. The low-energy membranes produce a high-quality final product water at 33% lower pressure, which reduces energy demand.  Wastewater processed to the required quality are fed through a pipeline to various plants within the complex for alternative industrial use.

Snehal Desai, global business director of DW&PS, said, “Economic and population growth is driving increasing demand for water resources.  Dow’s portfolio of sustainable water treatment solutions helps our customers improve water efficiency and get the most out of every drop of water in a circular economy where resources are reused and reclaimed from waste, thereby reducing demand on new supply.”

This project is a milestone in the improvement of the water reuse in the European industrial sector efficiency and municipal processes. Out of about 30 projects funded by the European Union’s DEMOWARE initiative, a program to demonstrate innovations that help build a competitive and innovative European water reuse sector, this is the only project related to industrial water reuse. 

Dow is also a user of the treated wastewater for its cooling tower operations.  The ethylene cracker cooling tower at Dow’s Tarragona site now uses up to 40% reclaimed water and has reduced its use of chemicals for water treatment by 23%. Depending on the season, this frees up more than 200m3 per hour of water rights for the municipality.  In addition, thanks to the higher quality of the reused water, the wastewater generated by the cooling towers has been reduced by up to 49%.

By reclaiming municipal wastewater for industrial purposes, the Camp de Tarragona petrochemical complex is able to minimize water stress and preserve freshwater to meet municipal, tourism, and agricultural demands. The final target is to serve 90% of the complex’s water demand with reclaimed water.

Congratulations to the whole team in the Tarragona site! 

[1]The DOW FILMTEC™ LE-440i Element has since been discontinued.  Speak to Dow about other DOW FILMTEC™ low energy elements: www.dowwaterandprocess.com/contactus.  

Water Reuse Conference

DEMOWARE project has worked to demonstrate the technical feasibility of innovative technologies for wastewater reclamation and reuse together with advanced monitoring options. Furthermore the project is promoting the marketability of water reuse schemes.

Next 13-14 June will take place in Barcelona a conference organized by DEMOWARE which intends to offer a place where to interchange experiences in water reuse projects from governance aspects to legal constraints and including all technical related aspects.

This conference will put together researcher, water utilities and companies in order to increase business opportunities. All attendants will have the occasion to explain their projects to the conference audience in the Showcase of water reuse technologies.

More information and registration:

Demoware Water Reuse Conference, Barcelona 13-14 June 2016

 

Citizens perceptions on water reuse in Sabadell

“Water reuse is common practice in the space station, thus it can be done.” This was a stricking observation of an elderly woman who participated in a citizens meeting on water reuse in Sabadell, Spain. As part of KWR’s governance research within the European project Demoware, a citizens focus group was organised on 21-1-2016 at CASSA, the water company of Sabadell. CASSA is operating several urban water reuse practices such as park irrigation, street cleaning and toilet flushing with treated municipal wastewater.

In general, the citizens are aware of water scarcity in the region and they expressed a positive attitude towards water reuse for a large range of practices. In fact, they expect government to make the use of reclaimed water mandatory for businesses and new houses. There is a health safety concern in case of potable reuse. But if water reuse organisations are transparent, if outsiders (e.g. doctors, health authority) approve the safety, and preferably if it is cheaper, they would even consider potable water reuse.

CASSA concluded that a focus group is a new and valuable instrument for them to engage with citizens on water reuse initiatives. 

 

Jos Frijns, KWR

CTM starts a pilot plant to produce energy from dairy whey

Fundació CTM Centre Tecnològic hosts a pilot plant to produce biogas and reclaimed water in farms from cheese whey using submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor technology (sAnMBR).

sAnMBR is seen as a potential technology for high-rate anaerobic treatment by linking anaerobic biological treatment with membrane filtration. This involves almost complete biomass retention and permits operation at high sludge retention times (SRT) with the capacity to generate high quality effluents. Nevertheless, its drawbacks (i.e. membrane permeability, dissolved methane in water, presence of sulphate reducing bacteria, etc.), still limit their implementation in full-scale processes.

Within rural environment, CTM, along with Czech company ASIO and the Swiss university FHNW, have designed and built a 500 L pilot plant pilot scale which is supposed to facilitate the implementation of sAnMBR technology in rural zones to integrate wastewater reclamation with waste management.

The sAnMBR pilot plant is actually providing treatment to whey. Cheese whey is a by-product from cheese manufacturing and is a strong organic and saline effluent. In order to recover water and energy from the whey, it is treated in the sAnMBR, which combines the biologic treatment of whey, the water separation by the submerged flat-sheet membranes and the biogas production, and therefore, energy generation.

 

2nd GA Meeting in Braunschweig

The second General Assembly meeting of DEMOWARE took place last 2-4 November in Braunschweig. The week started with both WP2 and WP3 meetings to discuss the progress of their tasks. On Tuesday 4th, there was a whole DEMOWARE session at the RE-WATER Conference with 6 presentations of work being done within the project. Finally, on Wednesday 5th, took place the General Assembly within the facilities of Steinhof wastewater treatment plant, operated by Abwasserberband Braunschweig and one of the sites of DEMOWARE.

DEMOWARE at RE-Water Conference

Last 2-3 November 2015 took place the 5th International Symposium RE-WATER Braunschweig

Since 2007 every two years RE-WATER Braunschweig presents current research results on the reuse of water and wastewater, nutrient recovery and closing of energy and material cycles. Also, subjects closely linked to these reuse topics such as questions of hygiene and pollutant loads as well as administrative and legal aspects especially in view of demographic and climatic changes are covered by the Symposium Series RE-WATER Braunschweig. For more than a hundred years, the irrigation fields in Braunschweig have been operated as a successful wastewater-nutrient-energy recycling system. Precisely for this reason, the city of Braunschweig is predestinated to host a symposium on reuse matters.

DEMOWARE had a relevant participation within the conference with 7 presentations focused on tasks being performed within DEMOWARE project. One of this presentations, conducted by Ulf Miehe from KWB, won the RE-WATER Award, which purpose is to pay tribute to exemplary and outstanding lectures, presentations, projects, initiatives and ideas that promote and optimise water recycling, to present them to the public at large and increase their visibility. The presentation was focused on the study partial disinfection strategies being done in Braunschweig demo site.

WP1 Meeting in Barcelona

Representatives of the WP1 participants attended a meeting in Barcelona last 27-28 October in order to share and discuss results in their tasks within the work package. WP1 is the largest work package of DEMOWARE and is focused on demonstrating innovative treatment processes and scheme operation for water reclamation and reuse. 

The meeting was a success and all participants agreed to repeat the experience again next year before the end of the project. 

Water reuse and the petrochemical industry of Tarragona

The Tarragona region is a growth area that is water stressed as the Ebro River water is used many times before reaching the sea. The municipalities in the region require more of this river water to enable their growth. Site and regional water supply of the Petrochemical Complex in Tarragona, Spain, is sourced from the Ebro River. AITASA is the company responsible of distributing industrial water in the Tarragona area.
The large Petrochemical Complex in Tarragona has sufficient water rights, which is mostly used in evaporative cooling towers that control the petrochemical process temperatures.

The Camp de Tarragona Advanced Water Reclamation Plant (CTAWRP), that VEOLIA and AITASA operates in Vila-Seca (Catalunya, Spain) is fed with the secondary effluent water coming from Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP) of the nearby municipalities of Vila-seca, Salou and Tarragona. This plant uses Actiflo clarification technology, two steps filtration followed by two pass DOW FILMTEC™ reverse osmosis that produces relatively high quality, low hardness and low salts water.

Within DEMOWARE, Dow Chemical Iberica in the framework of work package 1 and within the Tarragona site had the objective to feed reclaimed urban wastewater from CTAWRP through a dedicated line to their petrochemical production complex (Ethylene Cracker), located in the municipality of La Pobla de Mafumet. There, river water is blended with RO permeate coming from CTAWRP to provide make up water. 

The Cracker cooling tower ran on 100% Ebro river water at 4 cycles prior to the gradual change to 160 m3/h of reclaimed wastewater. The RO make up goes up in 3 different steps; initial step is between 40-60 m3/h (15%); then moves up to 100 m3/h (25%) to finally reach 160 m3/h (40%). The new water quality allows the cooling tower to be operated at 7 cycles of concentration in summer when ambient temperatures allow high evaporation rates.

Stable operation of the cooling tower has been achieved and demonstrated since starting to use to blending of reclaimed water as make-up water in the Dow Tarragona Ethylene Cracker Cooling Tower. The careful management of changing water chemistry in the Dow Tarragona Ethylene Cracker Cooling Tower enabled the use of 160m3/h (nearly 40% of the make-up feed) of RO permeate with minimum impact on corrosion and microbial growth. Depending on the season this frees up more than 200 m3/h of water rights for the municipality. The blowdown was reduced by 76 m3/h the which is a 49% reduction in discharge from the cooling tower.

 

Results from the EU consultation on water reuse

The results from the public consultation on water reuse are available through the EU Commission webiste on water reuse.  

According to the analysis report, 506 participants answered the consultation and the most supported uses appear to be applications not requiring high quality water such as street cleaning, fire-fighting, cooling, etc. and in which reclaimed water is not in direct contact with people (irrigation of non-food crops, irrigation of golf courses, etc.). Moderately-supported uses (selected by 40%-50% of respondents) include uses in industry and irrigation in which reclaimed water is not in contact with food, as well as groundwater recharge. The least-supported uses (selected by less than 30% of respondents) include uses in which reclaimed water is directly in contact with food (food industry with food contact, irrigation of fruits and vegetables to be eaten raw) or with people (bathing waters, drinking water). 

Awareness and perception-related issues emerge as the main barriers that hamper the implementation of water reuse schemes. Negative perception on the quality of reused water, the fact that water reuse is not seen as a component of integrated management, the lack of awareness on the benefits of reusing water and the lack of clarity of regulations are the main issues hampering water reuse at European level. 

DEMOWARE has participated in the consultation with an integrated response to the questionnaire sent by the EU Commission. 

DEMOWARE at WIE2015

DEMOWARE project was presented last Wednesday 24 of June at the WssTP Water Innovation Europe Event (WIE2015) in Brussels.

DEMOWARE project was presented last Wednesday 24 of June at the WssTP Water Innovation Europe Event (WIE2015) in Brussels. 

Water Innovation Europe was focused on exploring the challenges and opportunities for water in the circular economy concept. The conference aspires to examine how a circular approach to water can be given shape in an urban, industrial, and agricultural context. What are the barriers and bottlenecks that stand in the way of a circular approach to water and how can RTD and innovation contribute to realise these opportunities.

WIE2015 included a special session on market opportunities outside Europe as well as the 2nd edition of the WssTP Water SME awards. Some outstanding FP7 and H2020 projects, including DEMOWARE, were there to demonstrate how their results will offer concrete solutions for societal challenges.

WIE2015 provided participants with excellent network opportunities among potential partners from across the whole water value chain. A special speed-dating session also took place for more targetted networking.

Public Consultation on Water Reuse

The European Commission has published the consultation on policy options to optimize water reuse in the EU.

The aim of the consultation is to evaluate the most suitable EU-level instrument/s to foster water reuse, while ensuring the health and environmental safety of water reuse practices and the free trade of food products. The results of the consultation will be used as input for the preparation of the Impact Assessment covering all key areas of potential application of water reuse: agriculture, urban, industrial, and recreational uses (e.g. golf courses, bathing water), groundwater recharge, etc.

Link to the Consultation

WP2 Meeting in Basel

Participants in WP2 attended a meeting in Basel last 20-21 May to discuss about the progress of their tasks within the work package. The meeting was hosted by FHNW staff who kindly showed the facilities and laboratories were they are performing their activities within DEMOWARE. 

1st General Assembly Meeting in Tarragona

Last 9-11 December 2014 took place the first General Assembly of the project DEMOWARE just one year after its official start date in 1 January 2015. 

During the meeting all work packages presented their progress which it is up to date with minor deviations from the planned work. During the meeting, the participants had the opportunity to visit the DOW Chemical facilities which constitute the Tarragona site in DEMOWARE.

Kick-off meeting in Manresa

The official launch of the European project DEMOWARE took place at CTM, in Manresa, Spain, on the 12th and 13th of March.

The official launch of the European project DEMOWARE took place at CTM, in Manresa, Spain, on the 12th and 13th of March. Representatives of all the 27 partners come to Manresa to attend to talks of the coordination team and the workpackage leaders regarding technical and financial management procedures and introductions to workpackages structure and objectives.

The attendants also had the opportunity to present their companies to the other members of the consortium and to discuss with all the participants in their tasks the actions to be taken in the next months in parallel sessions.

On the evening of 12th took place a project dinner in Món Sant Benet Facilities where all the participants had the opportunitty to meet and share impressions about the project.

Next project meeting will be hold in Tarragona demonstration site and hosted by Dow Chemical Iberia on 10-12 December 2014