Technology news8

Filtration+Separation September/October 2012

Non-thermal brine concentrator eliminates water lossesGE has demonstrated new water treatment technology that virtually eliminates any water losses in ingredient water production. The company says that in a recent pilot study at a major global beverage company in Asia, GE’s AquaSel™ non-thermal brine concentrator (NTBC) technology achieved near-zero liquid discharge (ZLD) and reduced water costs, without the energy expense associated with a thermal evaporation system.

Using today’s technology, bottling companies can typically use 75-85% of the water supplied to their treatment room for bottled water and the variety of soft drinks they offer. The rest is discharged as a waste stream. Using GE’s AquaSel, these companies could safely treat and reuse the water to achieve more than 99% recovery in their plants.

“Billions of gallons of usable water are lost every day because today’s water treatment technologies have techno-economic limits on how much water can be treated and reused,” said Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO - water and process

technologies for GE Power & Water. “GE’s NTBC technology can turn billions of gallons of lost water into clean, usable water by virtually eliminating the wastewater streams in a variety of industrial and municipal treatment processes.”

GE’s AquaSel allows nearly 100% of water reuse in bottling plants and can remove impurities at room temperature, representing a more cost-effective, less energy-intensive way to treat and reuse water. In the pilot study, the AquaSel system had a capacity of 36,000 gal/d (5.7 m3/h). In more than 1,000 hours of operation with this new process, the bottler was able to capture and convert 1.5 million gallons (5,678 m3) of what was previously considered a waste stream into water suitable for reuse with a quality equivalent to that of the incoming water to the plant. With GE’s AquaSel system, the overall water recovery within the ingredient water room was increased to greater than 99%, which means that less than 1% of the influent water is now a byproduct of the new process.

www.ge.com

Metal separator has improved permanent magnetThe Eddy Current Non-ferrous Metal Separator from Eriez now features improved permanent magnetic circuits with Rare Earth Erium® 3000.

Eriez says that these are five times stronger than conventional permanent magnets, for stronger eddy currents and separation of non-ferrous materials.

Eriez Eddy Current Separators (ECS) remove non-ferrous metallics from plastics, glass cullet, electronic scrap, automobile shredder residue (ASR), boiler bottom ash, spent

foundry core sand, municipal solid waste (MSW), co-mingled recyclables, urban wood waste and mixed metals.

In operation, these non-ferrous separators utilise permanent Rare Earth magnets to induce eddy currents into non-ferrous metals. This produces repelling forces that separate the non-ferrous metals from non-metallics, providing a cleaner product for further processing. Removal of non-ferrous metals is selective and product loss is minimised.

www.eriez.com

The Eddy Current Non-ferrous Metal Separator from Eriez.

AES Arabia secures desalination project

AES Arabia Ltd has secured a US$14 million contract to design, manufacture, construct, commission and start-up a dedicated seawater reverse osmosis plant in Saudi Arabia.

The operation will produce up to 2,752 GPM of fresh water for the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) Research Park.

The contractor for this project is China National Chemical engineering Company (CNCEC) under the management of Saudi Aramco. The internationally affiliated AES Arabia, a Riyadh-based water and wastewater management company, was selected in competitive bidding based on its track record and due

to its long experience with Saudi Aramco work.

The source of seawater will be from a deep open intake and shall be extensively pre-treated before it is pumped into the desalination plant. The desalted water will be further treated for the removal of boron and consequently re-mineralised to meet WHO standards. Although built for a research institution, the plant design and manufacturing will be according to the stringent standards followed in all Saudi Aramco Oil and Gas projects.

AES Arabia previously built an 8000 CMD MBR sewage treatment plant and participated in the construction of the 52,000 CMD SWRO for KAUST.www.aesarabia.com

Sartorius opens production facility for bioreactors

Sartorius, the laboratory and pharmaceutical supplier, has opened a new plant in Guxhagen in northern Hesse, Germany for the manufacture of bioreactors.

Around €18 million was invested in the plant at which Sartorius now manufactures bioreactors and further production equipment for customers in the biopharmaceutical industry. Covering a total area of nearly 10,000 square feet, the new building complex provides space for a high-tech manufacturing hall and offices for around 240 employees. By opening this new site in Guxhagen, Sartorius has

moved from its former bioreactor production facility in Melsungen, Germany, where it had reached maximum capacity limits.

“The new plant enables us to substantially enhance our manufacturing processes and creates additional capacity for us in view of the rising demand for biopharmaceutical production equipment. As a result, we are optimally prepared for further expansion, especially for single-use bioreactors,” said Joachim Kreuzburg, the CEO and Executive Board Chairman of Sartorius AG.www.sartorius.com

FISE0512_news_technology 8 19-09-12 17:32:10