By Pang Yanrong, Senior Editor
DuPont Water Solutions is a global leader in sustainable separation and purification technology. The company recently completed four acquisitions to increase access to products and technologies needed to meet global customers’ current and future water and wastewater challenges.
Regional Commercial Director,
Pacific region, DuPont Water Solutions
In 2019, DuPont Water Solutions (DWS) completed the acquisitions of Desalitech, inge GmbH, Memcor®, and OxyMem Limited; adding to its leading portfolio of water purification and separation technologies, including ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO) and ion exchange resins.
• inge GmbH: the industry-leading, multibore PES ultrafiltration (UF) technology which complements DWS’ high-flow PVDF membrane technology.
• Memcor® broadens DWS’ solutions membrane bioreactors (MBR), submerged and pressurised UF systems, and other new applications.
• Desalitech: the CCRO technology addresses the increasing needs for high water recovery in core market segments such as food and beverage, municipal, microelectronics, power and others. The addition of this technology helps to further reduce the life cycle cost of water, delivering more than 95% recovery and making it easy for end users to operate in small- to-medium-sized systems in industrial and decentralised settings.
• OxyMem: advanced membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) technology for the treatment and purification of municipal and industrial wastewater, which bring secondary wastewater treatment to the next level with energy savings and smaller footprints.
The four acquisitions aligned DWS’ strategy to be the leading supplier of water technologies while serving the evolving needs of their global customers.
With the addition of inge and Memcor portfolios, DWS becomes the leading UF supplier across multiple market segments such as residential, industrial, utility, wastewater and other specialty solutions. And with CCRO from Desalitech, DWS is able to provide customers with options and flexibility to solve water scarcity and purification challenges. Adding the emerging technologies from OxyMem, the company can better support customers who are looking to reduce footprint and energy requirements for secondary wastewater treatment.
“Our goal is to increase access to water and wastewater treatment products and technologies needed to meet global customers’ current and future challenges, including the increased need to recycle water while reducing the energy requirements to generate clean water. We are constantly expanding our technology portfolio of high-quality solutions to help our customers purify, conserve and reuse water,” explained Dominic Wang, regional commercial director for the pacific region, DWS.
As a global leader in shaping innovative water technologies, DWS is constantly expanding their technology portfolio of high-quality solutions to help customers solve water challenges around the world. The company is committed in ongoing research and development initiatives to invent and innovate water separation with state-of-the-art technologies.
This can be seen in their strong partnerships and collaborations with multi-players for projects such as the Petronas RAPID project in Malaysia. It was a successful partnership with various EPCs (Engineer-procureconstructs) and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) using DuPont water components including resin in centralised utility water, catalyst in chemical process, de-oiling technologies in process water and FilmTecTM reverse osmosis in wastewater; a good testament of MultiTech off er in process and water separation technologies from DWS.
POTENTIAL OF ASIA PACIFIC
As water scarcity is a serious topic in Asia due to population growth, with 60% of the world’s population in the region; climate change; industrial development and rapid urbanisation, this has led to an increasing need for wastewater recycle and reuse.
“We have successful partnerships in many projects related to wastewater reuse in Asia,” explained Wang. “For instance, in the municipal segment, our products are used by Beenyup Advanced Water Recycling Plant in Perth (Australia); and in the textile segment, we actively working with textile manufacturers to reduce treatment cost for ZLD (zero liquid discharge) wastewater treatment as well as introduce MLD (minimal liquid discharge), which is an alternative to ZLD with an objective to minimise cost and maximize recovery.”
In fact, according to Wang, the company sees an increasing trend of seawater desalination in municipal as an alternative water source.
“Our seawater ROs have a strong proven record in many desalination plants. This includes Australia’s first large scale municipal desalination plant in Perth,” commented Wang. “Since its commissioning in 2006, the plant operates at a recovery of 45% for the first pass seawater RO and 90% for the second pass brackish water RO. The well-maintained membranes have been operating for over 10 years without replacement and has consistently demonstrated excellent operating performance, reliability, and durability.”
In the industrial segment for both water and wastewater, he noted that there’s a shift from CAPEX-driven model to OPEX-driven mindset as end-users tend to optimise their existing infrastructure in terms of performance and process efficiency or execute brownfield projects.
For instance, in the power industry, DWS’ ultrafiltration technology has helped yield 20% reduction in operating costs for GNPower in the Philippines.
“The end-user is satisfied with the product performance as well as the positive impacts brought by using FilmTecTM IntegraPacTM UF modules,” explained Wang. “Besides gaining the advantage of lower operating costs, their desalination production went up and there was an improvement in their water footprint. The cost of producing electricity for Bataan is also significantly more affordable.”
Photo credit: Prasesh Shiwakoti
TACKLING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
As with every industry and business in the world, DuPont had to overcome the challenges that presented from the pandemic. However, DWS managed to continue its operations safely and in line with the regional guideline as an essential business.
The company also understands that the world needs abundant, clean, safe water flowing to homes, businesses, and hospitals to reduce the spread of the virus while promoting recovery and maintaining health, especially during these challenging times.
“We have worked hard to ensure that our plants stay open with a focus on delivering our commitments and reducing our lead times. We’re committed in helping our customers navigate new challenges and the new normal presented by COVID-19, such as maintaining an improved supply and providing virtual training opportunities through our Water and Process Academy,” explained Wang.
In addition, DWS co-sponsored with a local brand owner in Vietnam to supply drinking water purifiers and personal protective equipment to five local hospitals with an objective to create a positive impact in the communities that have been directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is on top of partnering with Coca-Cola to sponsor water fountains in Hanoi city, which allows the company to draw on their expertise as an industry leader in water separation – providing clean water to the local residents.
DWS is also the first water brand partner to assist in preventing the spread of COVID-19 in vulnerable communities through the deployment of hand-washing stations, hygiene and sanitation training as well as community health messaging.
Moving beyond the pandemic, the company is a leading player in advocating wastewater recycle and reuse, as well as close the loop for water usage instead of linear approach, which wastewater will eventually dispose away, as it is not sustainable in long run.
To do so, this involves a strong collective effort from multidisciplinary players to advocate general awareness of water conservation among the general public along with educating about circular water economy among industries and partners about reusing and recycling wastewater.
This can be done through technological shift, which will enable more effective and efficient water and wastewater treatment systems, said Wang.
“We aim to work with multi-players, like equipment manufacturers, end users and other value chain partners in a variety of business models and collaboration modes; solving every water challenge, creating shared value and driving superior performance,” expressed Wang.
Article may be found in Water & Wastewater Asia’s September/October 2020 issue: https://issuu.com/pablopublishing/docs/5_wwa_septemberoctober_2020_ebook/16
