GE (NYSE: GE) has successfully demonstrated breakthrough water treatment
technology that virtually eliminates any water losses in ingredient
water production. In a recent pilot study at a major global beverage
company in Asia, GE’s
AquaSel* non-thermal brine concentrator (NTBC) technology achieved
near-zero liquid discharge (ZLD) and reduced water costs, without the
energy expense associated with a thermal evaporation system.
Using today’s technology, bottling companies can typically use 75 to 85
percent of the water supplied to their treatment room for bottled water
and the variety of soft drinks they offer. The rest is discharged as a
waste stream. Using GE’s AquaSel, these companies could safely treat and
reuse the water to achieve 99+ percent recovery in their plants.
“Billions of gallons of usable water are lost every day because today’s
water treatment technologies have techno-economic limits on how much
water can be treated and reused,” said Heiner Markhoff, president and
CEO—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. “GE’s NTBC
technology can turn billions of gallons of lost water into clean, usable
water by virtually eliminating the wastewater streams in a variety of
industrial and municipal treatment processes.”
GE’s AquaSel allows nearly 100 percent of water reuse in bottling plants
and can remove impurities at room temperature, representing a more
cost-effective, less energy-intensive way to treat and reuse water. In
the pilot study, the AquaSel system had a capacity of 36,000 gal/d (5.7 m3/h).
In more than 1,000 hours of operation with this new process, the bottler
was able to capture and convert 1.5 million gallons (5,678 m3)
of what was previously considered a waste stream into water suitable for
reuse with a quality equivalent to that of the incoming water to the
plant. With GE’s AquaSel system, the overall water recovery within the
ingredient water room was increased to greater than 99 percent, which
means that less than 1 percent of the influent water is now a byproduct
of the new process.
Based on pilot results and the increase in the amount of water that
could be treated and reused for bottling, as much as 30 million gallons
per day (114,000 m3 per day) could be saved by major bottlers
if GE’s NTBC technology was implemented at all of their plants around
the world.
Over the course of an entire year, a 30 million gallon (114,000 m3)
savings translates into nearly 11 billion gallons (42 million m3)
of water saved just at this bottler’s facilities. That amount could
supply safe drinking water for a day to more than 150 million people.
Introduced
this past September, GE’s NTBC technology was jointly developed by
GE Power & Water and GE Global Research. The AquaSel NTBC technology
underscores GE’s commitment to create advanced technologies for
industrial use and is based on an environmentally sustainable process
that minimizes waste, chemical and energy consumption and achieves an
unprecedented total cost of operation for such a high water recovery
level. Specifically, AquaSel is designed to achieve greater than 99
percent water recovery in the ingredient water room, which greatly
improves the water-use ratio of the production facility. AquaSel is a
patented system that runs at a very high recovery on reverse osmosis
reject water, producing a clean filtrate stream plus a small blowdown
stream and a dry salt cake for disposal. The filtrate produced has total
dissolved solids at or below the raw water and can be looped back to the
front of the ingredient water system.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best
technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in
energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering,
moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For
more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.
GE
Energy works connecting people and ideas everywhere to create
advanced technologies for powering a cleaner, more productive
world. With more than 100,000 employees in over 100 countries, our
diverse portfolio of product and service solutions and deep industry
expertise help our customers solve their challenges locally. We serve
the energy sector with technologies in such areas as natural gas, oil,
coal and nuclear energy; wind, solar, biogas and water processing;
energy management; and grid modernization. We also offer integrated
solutions to serve energy- and water-intensive industries such as
mining, metals, marine, petrochemical, food & beverage and
unconventional fuels.
Follow GE Energy on Twitter @GE_Energy.
* Trademark of the General Electric Company, may be registered in one or
more countries.
