Periodic Reporting for period 3 - AquaSPICE (Advancing Sustainability of Process Industries through Digital and Circular Water Use Innovations)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-12-01 bis 2025-05-31
AquaSPICE aims to increase awareness about resource efficiency in industrial water management in the European Process Industry and offers innovation that transverses three pillars:
(i) Process Innovation: A comprehensive set of advanced water treatment and reuse technologies, combining water and substances recovery, is investigated and assessed.
(ii) Circular Innovation: Closed-loops practices, including water reuse options at different levels are analysed.
(iii) Digital Innovation: The novel concept of a water-specific Cyber-Physical-System (WaterCPS) synthesising digital twins of industrial and value chain entities to provide advanced water-saving awareness and optimised water efficiency is developed.
The main application of AquaSPICE innovations takes place in a range of industrial Case Studies (CSs), involving several industrial actors in different EU countries (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Romania) and one associated country (Turkey). Activities mainly comprise the fine organic chemistry sector, but also the petro-chemical and food industry. All sites are characterised by a significant strain on available water resources with limited options to increase the water intake and major uncertainties with respect to the future availability of water for industrial purposes. Hence, there is a strong need for increasing water efficiency and employ advanced water solutions.
(i) Process Innovation: A comprehensive set of advanced water treatment and reuse technologies, combining water and substances recovery, is investigated and assessed.
(ii) Circular Innovation: Closed-loops practices, including water reuse options at different levels are analysed.
(iii) Digital Innovation: The novel concept of a water-specific Cyber-Physical-System (WaterCPS) synthesising digital twins of industrial and value chain entities to provide advanced water-saving awareness and optimised water efficiency is developed.
The main application of AquaSPICE innovations takes place in a range of industrial Case Studies (CSs), involving several industrial actors in different EU countries (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Romania) and one associated country (Turkey). Activities mainly comprise the fine organic chemistry sector, but also the petro-chemical and food industry. All sites are characterised by a significant strain on available water resources with limited options to increase the water intake and major uncertainties with respect to the future availability of water for industrial purposes. Hence, there is a strong need for increasing water efficiency and employ advanced water solutions.
The activities in AquaSPICE have been finalized in the third reporting period with technical implementations in the Case Studies (CSs) and deployments of digital tools as well as an analysis of cross-cutting aspects and a broad set of dissemination and exploitation activities. The conceptual Water Efficiency Framework (WEF) has been developed and tested within the CSs, identifying major drivers and barriers for water efficiency measures in industries as well as an evaluation of the Digital Maturity.
For the technical activities, the IMPROVED containers continued to allow the investigation of different treatment technologies including ion exchange and membrane filtration such as ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. The containers, used on the water-stressed Dow’s sites, e.g. in Boehlen and previously in Terneuzen, treated different water streams and demonstrated the feasibility of treatment and reuse options. In the Italian CS, focusing on a hydrogen peroxide production plant, the pilot scale system using membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology has been implemented and on-site tests have been performed. In the Belgian CS, data collection continued based on the Real-Time Monitoring (RTM) network of 45 sensors installed along the Albert canal upstream of the Antwerp harbour. The second pillar of the CS involves the industrial cooling processes, investigated in the MERADES pilot, and resource recovery options at BASF, where the IMPROVED containers have been deployed and extensive tests have been performed. In the Romanian CS, pilot tests have been completed on-site with an advanced wastewater treatment process including MBR technology and UV disinfection with water quality monitoring by innovative online flow-cytometry. A focus in the third period was on data analysis. In the Turkish CS, for very challenging wastewater streams from the oil refinery in Izmit, a pilot system with granular sludge has been implemented and ultrafiltration plus reverse osmosis. The core digital offering of AquaSPICE, the WaterCPS, aims to provide advanced water-saving awareness and optimised water efficiency at different industrial levels by synthesising digital twins of industrial and value chain entities. Digital components of the WaterCPS have been designed, developed, and deployed in all CSs. The RTM platform has been developed and sensors have been deployed in all CSs. The dynamic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) supports the sustainability evaluation. Digital twin components have been implemented for all CSs, including intelligent services (simulation, analytics, optimisation and LCA) into the WaterCPS platform. The dissemination component has delivered a wealth of open information through various channels including a website, social media, and a digital newsletter. AquaSPICE has been presented in various workshops and digital events, scientific publications have been prepared. AquaSPICE pursues a very intensive interaction with a range of stakeholders on the European and site-specific level to pave the way for an impact-oriented project.
For the technical activities, the IMPROVED containers continued to allow the investigation of different treatment technologies including ion exchange and membrane filtration such as ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. The containers, used on the water-stressed Dow’s sites, e.g. in Boehlen and previously in Terneuzen, treated different water streams and demonstrated the feasibility of treatment and reuse options. In the Italian CS, focusing on a hydrogen peroxide production plant, the pilot scale system using membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology has been implemented and on-site tests have been performed. In the Belgian CS, data collection continued based on the Real-Time Monitoring (RTM) network of 45 sensors installed along the Albert canal upstream of the Antwerp harbour. The second pillar of the CS involves the industrial cooling processes, investigated in the MERADES pilot, and resource recovery options at BASF, where the IMPROVED containers have been deployed and extensive tests have been performed. In the Romanian CS, pilot tests have been completed on-site with an advanced wastewater treatment process including MBR technology and UV disinfection with water quality monitoring by innovative online flow-cytometry. A focus in the third period was on data analysis. In the Turkish CS, for very challenging wastewater streams from the oil refinery in Izmit, a pilot system with granular sludge has been implemented and ultrafiltration plus reverse osmosis. The core digital offering of AquaSPICE, the WaterCPS, aims to provide advanced water-saving awareness and optimised water efficiency at different industrial levels by synthesising digital twins of industrial and value chain entities. Digital components of the WaterCPS have been designed, developed, and deployed in all CSs. The RTM platform has been developed and sensors have been deployed in all CSs. The dynamic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) supports the sustainability evaluation. Digital twin components have been implemented for all CSs, including intelligent services (simulation, analytics, optimisation and LCA) into the WaterCPS platform. The dissemination component has delivered a wealth of open information through various channels including a website, social media, and a digital newsletter. AquaSPICE has been presented in various workshops and digital events, scientific publications have been prepared. AquaSPICE pursues a very intensive interaction with a range of stakeholders on the European and site-specific level to pave the way for an impact-oriented project.
Major progress has been made beyond the State of the Art (SotA) with respect to knowledge about the composition of specific water streams in the process industry, including different raw and wastewater sources. A focus has been put on industrial cooling waters as well as on related feed and blow-down waters. Various treatment configurations have been tested and insights have been gained about the effectiveness of process combinations. Water quality parameters included both inorganics and organics. The suitability for water reuse has been assessed in the case studies and can provide the basis for further implementation of the technologies in full scale. The developed water efficiency framework (WEF) integrates important aspects of industrial water use such as the sector-specific water quality and quantity requirements, which depend on the actual production processes and product specifications. The WEF addresses the regulatory conditions, which are complex and entail e.g. the Industrial Emissions Directive, with its Best Available Technologies Reference Documents, but also considers the Water Framework Directive related aspects. Considering the objectives of the Circular Economy action plan, the industry strives for improvements beyond compliance to increase resilience in view of climate change and other challenges. AquaSPICE results address such factors in the form of indicators and depict the possible role of different efficiency measures in the technical and managerial domain to make them available for end-users. The novel RTM platform has been designed to integrate different data sources and provide the data required by the WaterCPS platform and intelligent services. An innovative DataQA module has been developed, as part of the Data Fusion Middleware, responsible for analysing information published in the context broker in real time and detecting outliers and anomalies. SotA and beyond security approaches for context-aware access policies have been applied to ensure data security of the industrial water processes within the AquaSPICE framework. Various intelligent services (process modelling, simulation, data analytics, optimisation, and life cycle assessment) have been designed based on SotA methodologies. Both stand-alone software tools for each service as well as the corresponding Application Programming Interfaces (API) have been developed and applied to the AquaSPICE CSs. Novel networks of Digital Twins of the industrial and value chain entities have been developed. The innovative Cyber Physical System has been developed to enhance water efficiency in the Process Industry, using 3 approaches :(i) Production chain enhancement; (ii) Diagnostic; (iii) Optimisation. AquaSPICE also facilitates the uptake, replication, and up-scaling of innovations, by providing comprehensive strategic, business, and organizational plans, which have been drafted in the form of exploitation plans.