Grundfos Reuses Wastewater
In the future, water supplies will be even scarcer than is presently the case. Action must be taken in order to solve the problem.
Climate change causes a number of different problems. As regards water resources, climate change affects the environment in a number of different ways. Common to them is that they will ultimately be of great consequence to the total amount of clean drinking water.
“Dry areas will become drier and this will lead to a greater pressure on existing water resources. However, the opposite could happen, too. Several areas are suffering from heavy rainfall. This, combined with logging, causes erosion, which allows pollution to enter water streams, thereby aggravating the situation,” says Dan Rosbjerg, lecturer at the Department of Environmental Engineering, the Technical University of Denmark.
It is a Grundfos objective to develop products that will alleviate the growing water stress in the world. With Innovation Intent and the establishment of the innovation platform Rethink Decentralised Water Treatment, we have increased our strategic focus on the development of new water treatment solutions.
BioBooster, Grundfos’ mobile wastewater treatment plant, presents one answer to growing water scarcity. The BioBooster plants are capable of treating wastewater to such an extent that the water may be readily used for, for example, sanitation or irrigation of fields.
Too little – and too much
Water resources are not distributed equally. In certain parts of the world, for example North America and Europe, water resources are readily available, while Africa and Asia do not have access to similar natural resources of freshwater. Yet, poor utilization of existing water resources forms part of the problem, too.
As a result, challenges vary. In places characterized by scarcity of resources, the focus must be on optimum utilization of the available freshwater, while places with plenty of resources must make an effort not to destroy them.
Innovation Intent
Innovation Intent is Grundfos’ guiding principle, which gives focus to our long-term innovation efforts. Furthermore, Grundfos’ Innovation Intent is to put sustainability first, be there for a growing world, and pioneer new technologies. Every major concept that we will be launching over the next 20 to 30 years should meet all three criteria.
Rethink Decentralised Water Treatment is one of three innovation platforms that make up Grundfos’ Innovation Intent and was launched for the purpose of creating a platform for technological and commercial water treatment solutions. The water treatment solutions are used on location, that is, where the water is to be used.
With the innovation platform Rethink Decentralised Water Treatment, Grundfos takes an approach whereby the water is either:
- upgraded to the specific needs of the place where the water will be used,
- treated for the purpose of reusing the water, or
- treated for the purpose of causing significantly less strain on the environment when the water is discharged to the recipient.
The advantage of decentralized units
One central, strong point of the Grundfos BioBooster wastewater treatment plant is mobility. Basically, the plants can be installed wherever they are needed. They may be installed directly at the source of pollution or at the place where the water is to be reused.
“There is a growing need for being able to reuse wastewater, as water scarcity is a constantly growing problem. In many places there is a need to be able to reuse water from various processes, and that is why the entire BioBooster concept has some great characteristics,” says Mogens Henze, director of the Department of Environmental Engineering, the Technical University of Denmark, commenting on the wastewater treatment plants’ mobility and numerous applications.
However, speedy utilization of water resources is but one advantage of the decentralized plants. Other possibilities present themselves, too, for example in relation to wastewater surveillance.
“Each plant treats a relatively small amount of wastewater, and in case of fluctuations in water quality, it will be much easier to identify the source of problematic substances in the wastewater, for example from hospitals or industry. This makes it much easier to address these fluctuations,” says Søren Nøhr Bak, technical manager of Grundfos BioBooster.
Ready to roll out
At present, the Grundfos BioBooster plants have shown their superiority in several areas. For example, the plants have been installed on Italian farms where the purified wastewater was used for irrigation of tomato fields.
At the same time, Grundfos BioBooster has just entered into its first official partnership with a Danish municipality. This, too, can be of great value to both Grundfos and society. Purification of municipal wastewater constitutes by far the largest part of the total market for wastewater treatment. A breakthrough in this area could be of great importance to the prevalence of the BioBooster technology. Municipal wastewater is characterized by having a relatively similar complexity, and experience gained can easily be transferred to similar jobs across the world. If the water is purified locally, no expenses will be made for the infrastructure that is needed to transport the water from the source of pollution to the central purification plant in the area. Reduced transport of the water will in itself lead to major energy savings.
The first wastewater treatment plant has already been installed in Viborg municipality in Denmark, and with good experience. Therefore, the municipality will rethink their future wastewater structure, which will imply the closing down of 18 small wastewater treatment plants: “In that case, the BioBooster will be considered as our new alternative,” says Finn Køhler, wastewater manager, Viborg Spildevand A/S.
Several other municipalities, too, see the advantages of decentralized treatment of wastewater:
“BioBooster presents an approach to the treatment procedure that is completely different to the existing procedure. The modular construction that may be scaled up or down allows us to make adjustments according to need. And the mobility means that the plant can easily be moved if needs change. This is innovation in the true sense of the word,” says Jacob Andersen, head of section, Hjørring water company, Denmark.
This project description was originally presented in the Global Compact International Yearbook 2010.
About Grundfos
Grundfos (Danish pronunciation: [ˈɡʁɔnˀfʌs]) is a pump manufacturer, based in Denmark, with more than 18,000 employees globally. The annual production of more than 16 million pump units, circulator pumps (UP), submersible pumps (SP), and centrifugal pumps (CR). Grundfos also produces electric motors for the pumps as well as electric motors for separate merchandising. Grundfos develops and sells electronics for controls for pumps and other systems.
Source: Wikipedia