Industry activities such as manufacturing, mining & quarrying or construction have to deal with both contaminated stormwater and industrial process wastewaters at their sites. These wastewaters, generally of high volumes and flow rates, have high contents of suspended and dissolved pollutants. In order to be discharged safely, and to comply with EC regulations, they need to be treated accordingly.
The European water treatment market presents a supply gap for effective treatment equipment. Today’s technology is either not effective at treating larger volumes of water, too complex or too costly. Therefore, companies struggle to comply with regulations as disposal of residual wastewaters from an industrial plant is still a difficult and costly problem (several € millions/year). This situation force companies and projects to shut down or relocate to areas outside Europe, with less strict regulations, in order to avoid fines.
Moreover, the management of industrial stormwater is particularly one of the biggest environmental problems today; impacting water quality, human’s health and ecosystems. Finally, industrial water use accounts for 20-30% of total water consumption and accounts for up to 25% of total production costs. With industries facing pressure on scarce water resources and even under the most favourable scenarios of climate change, the reuse of water becomes the best alternative to save costs while reducing charges for water disposal.
CleanHydro is a complete solution for the treatment of large volumes of industrial storm and wastewater, for many different types of activities: infrastructure and construction projects, mining or manufacturing industry (e.g. metal industry). It presents a 2-steps modular water treatment approach: 1) chitosan based chemical flocculation and sedimentation, to effectively remove particulate contaminants and particle-associated pollutants, and 2) BioMedia filtration with sorptive media to effectively remove a wide variety of dissolved pollutants (dissolved heavy metals and organic compounds). CleanHydro provides a complete treatment program that can address a wide variety of water treatment challenges, allowing European industries to meet their obligations more affordably, safely and effectively.
CleanHydro is currently at TRL7 with a pilot version successfully tested. Before engaging in the full project development we have conducted a Feasibility Study, to ensure its technical, commercial and financial viability.
