Problem being addressed:
Every industry needs water for its daily operations. During the operational process, this water is unavoidably being transformed into wastewater, which can be saline impaired (brine) effluent. The treatment of wastewater is typically not recognised as an important element of industrial practice. As end-users are primarily focused on the efficiency and quality of their output or product and do not have in-house expertise in wastewater treatment, they tend to regard wastewater stream as an inconvenient by-product, and often assign an expert to treat it effectively.
Today, brine effluents comprise a big management problem for many industries, especially process industries. Chemical industries, waste treatment, steel industry, power industries, refineries, pulp & paper, agro-food and leather/tannery are the 8 largest sources of chlorides in Europe at descending order. At the same time, the process industries discharge as much as 50% of their energy as waste heat to the environment, a cause of environmental degradation but also a loss of economic resources.
Social impact:
Freshwater scarcity is already a global problem, and forecasts suggest a growing gap by 2030 between annual freshwater demand and renewable supply. If there is no improvement in the efficiency of water use, in 2030, demand for water could outstrip supply by 40%. According to recent studies, global water demand is projected to increase by some 55% by 2030 and as a result 2.3 billion more people than today are projected to live in river basins experiencing severe water stress. Water scarcity and droughts already affect one third of the EU territory across different latitudes. Water crisis has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as the first risk that society has to face today (2015) at a global level. Global competition for water is increasing and is expected to lead to social, geo-political, environmental and economic consequences. Industry is a major water consumer, as it accounts for two thirds of all non-agricultural water withdrawals worldwide.
Overall objective:
The overall objective of this project is to fill an identified knowledge gap in our company that will enable to realise our growth potential. This gap has been identified after the implementation of an SME Phase 1 project called GReen Desalination (Project No. 674455), in the framework of which a strategic business plan was elaborated. The main project result comprises the software tool that was developed by the SME Associate which enables the simulation of our innovative evaporator and its coupling with waste heat generated by industrial operations.
