Een samenwerking voor het verduurzamen van water
Waterschaarste wordt steeds meer werkelijkheid op sommige Dow-locaties in Europa. Daarom zoeken we naar mogelijkheden om het zoetwatergebruik in de verschillende productielocaties te verminderen. Op deze manier dragen we bij aan onze watertransitie- en duurzaamheidsdoelen. Met als uitgangspunt dat efficiënte en betrouwbare technieken worden gesynchroniseerd met hoge eisen aan waterkwaliteit en kosten. Dit is waar het AquaSPICE-project om de hoek komt kijken. Onze collega's Niels Groot en Andrea De Las Heras García, beiden Waterspecialisten bij Dow, zijn zeer betrokken bij het AquaSPICE-project en zullen er meer over vertellen.
Niels begint: “De belangrijkste doelen van het AquaSPICE-project zijn het verminderen van de watervraag, het verminderen of herstellen van waterverlies, het voorbewerken en recyclen van water en het gebruik van alternatieve waterbronnen. Het project maakt deel uit van een breed Europees consortium, een samenwerking met 29 partners uit de industrie, de academische wereld, watertechnologie en IT-bedrijven. Binnen het project worden 6 case studies uitgevoerd, waarbij Dow zich richt op het verminderen van de zoetwateropname.”
The AquaSPICE-project
The Boehlen and Terneuzen sites are among Dow's most important water-loaded sites. And for Dow, the main goal of this project is a roadmap with the potential to reduce freshwater intake by another 20% at both sites. The plan will include all the technical and financial details needed for:
- The optimal selection of freshwater supply sources for producing extra water for cooling towers, allowing them to operate with significantly higher thickening rates.
- The internal reuse of cooling tower blowdown streams.
- The treatment and direct reuse of slightly contaminated process water and internal blowdown streams of contaminated condensate.
To investigate the full potential of our own Dow Case Study, a first pilot was started at Dow Terneuzen and is now successfully completed. Andrea: “Research within this pilot was done by using the IMPROVED’ mobile treatment facilities, these are mobile containers in which testing can be done. As a follow-up on the Terneuzen trials, the containers will be moved to our Dow location in Boehlen. Here a new pilot will be started, based on the Terneuzen trials as their starting point. Next the containers will return to Terneuzen to execute the final part of the trials on site. In parallel to the pilots we start the second part of the project, which covers the digitalization. We aim to make smarter use of sensing monitoring systems, to optimize the current systems, so we can reduce water loss. This way it’s all connected at some point.” “Of course we are all very excited about the next steps, Niels adds”.
Out of the 29 partners involved in the AquaSPICE-project, Dow has a close collaboration with with Evides and multiple Universities around Europe. Namely: HZ University, Ghent University, University of Crete and Athens University. Niels: “Researchers from the Universities cover the operations part of the trials together with their students. And others help them to evaluate the test results. This way, students can learn a lot from the pilots within the AquaSPICE-project.” Andrea adds: “It’s nice to work with Universities and to see that they enjoy the project and the commitment. With all 29 partners we act as a team, because we all share a common goal. That is the nicest part of these type of projects.”
AquaSPICE is part of a broad European consortium, €10.9 million in EU grants were awarded for the implementation of this project (with a total budget of €12.8 million). The project is aligned with the European Green Deal and focuses on water scarcity, water security and all related aspects. The project has started in December 2020 and will take a total of 4 years to complete.
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