Water Technologies & Solutions case study

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CS1100EN.docx Jun-13

transforming difficult-to-treat municipal effluent into cooling tower makeup water

figure 1: cooling tower EDR Water Treatment System

Note: SUEZ purchased Ionics in 2005.

challenge National Cement Company in Dubai required a reliable source of cooling tower makeup water. Groundwater in the United Arab Emirates, as in many parts of the world, is scarce and municipal water is supplied by seawater desalination. Although wastewater reuse had not yet achieved strong penetration in the mid-eighties, National Cement Company wanted to pioneer its application. While municipal primary-treated effluent was available as a feedwater source, the challenge was that the mineral content was unsuitably high for cooling tower makeup water.

solution recovery and reuse of municipal effluent

The right demineralization solution was required to meet the challenge in Dubai, and both reverse osmosis (RO), and electro dialysis reversal (EDR) were evaluated as alternative solutions.

EDR was chosen as the robust membrane-based technology due to its reliable performance and ability to handle such a highly variable feedwater (figure 1).

Although desalinated seawater in the United Arab Emirates is subsidized by the government, reusing the

municipal wastewater for the cooling tower makeup saved National Cement Company enough to pay for the EDR plant in just two years. See Figure 2 for a diagram of the EDR plant. Today, wastewater reuse is becoming more and more prevalent in developed and developing countries alike, and EDR is helping to achieve cost-effective demineralization of challenging waters around the world. See Table 1 for the project summary at National Cement Company.

figure 2: cooling tower process

table 1: project summary

end user National Cement Company

location Dubai, United Arab Emirates

commissioned 1985

application Cooling tower makeup

feedwater source Municipal effluent

feedwater quality 1,800 to 2,300 ppm (mg/l) TDS

product quality <500 ppm (mg/l) TDS

water recovery 80%

capacity 264,000 gpd (1,000 m3/day)

technology Electro dialysis reversal (EDR)