Subject

Innovative water treatment technologies

Making efficient and sustainable water treatment possible

Drinking water treatment is subject to many demands and, today, the challenges it faces are becoming increasingly complex – for instance, the increased occurrence of emerging contaminants, salinisation and antimicrobial resistant bacteria in drinking water sources. KWH’s multifaceted expertise in the field of water treatment technologies addresses a number of the questions confronting the water sector. This helps strengthen the innovativeness, efficiency and sustainability of drinking water or wastewater treatment.

Heavy demands require innovation

While the quality and availability of raw water are declining worldwide, treatment processes are still expected to supply healthy, safe and reliable drinking water, at acceptable cost and energy consumption levels, and with a minimum of waste and by-products. Comparable demands apply to wastewater treatment. In response to such rapidly changing circumstances, the current drinking water treatment technologies have to be adapted. The development and application of innovative processes and concepts for water treatment are needed, so that the water sector can continue supplying water of impeccable quality in a clean environment far into the future.

New technologies and process modelling

KWH disposes of a wide spectrum of possibilities to improve drinking water treatment. Our expertise includes membrane filtration, advanced oxidation, softening, rapid sand filtration, coagulation, activated carbon filtration, ion exchange and biological processes. We also develop new techniques and concepts, such as eutectic freeze crystallization for the energy-efficient separation of salt and water, and multi-source one-step reverse osmosis (RO), for full stream RO treatment of raw water sources with minimal pre-treatment. KWR plays a pioneering role in the Netherlands in the field of osmotically-driven membrane processes. This is also the case for the development of air/water cleaning to control membrane fouling, and for fluidized ion exchange processes for the removal of natural organic matter. With respect to the innovative treatment of wastewater or sludge, KWH develops new knowledge, such as biological sulphate reduction and hydrodynamic cavitation for effective sludge disintegration. Our data-driven models (soft sensors), statistics (data mining and data analytics) and process modelling provide insight into how drinking water treatment processes can be more efficiently organised. Applications can be found in a wide range of drinking water installations: ultraviolet (UV) or UV/peroxide installations, ozone installations, softening and flocculation reactors, and service reservoirs.

Innovative, efficient and sustainable

Besides technical solutions, KWR also focuses on other essential elements in the renewal of water treatment processes. Innovation is not only about increased efficiency but also increased sustainability. It encompasses design optimisation and operational management, data processing, soft sensing (simultaneous processing of multiple data) and improved process modelling.

Researchers at a full-scale membrane installation at Evides Industriewater.

Researchers at a full-scale membrane installation at Evides Industriewater (Rotterdam).