THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
Another innovative step towards smart energy infrastructure in development policy
No more dead through contaminated water! by Raymond Hernandez, Business Development Water Treatment, BLÜCHER GmbH, Erkrath
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very human being in the world has the fundamental right to proper drinking water (see https://bit.ly/2WcLuYo ), but the United Nations reports, that there are more dead through contaminated water than war. Water consumption is increasing by 1% each year. The reasons for this are not only population growth and changing lifestyles, but also the climate change and related droughts and floods which complicate access to drinking water. Around 844 million people do not have any access to drinkable water and only 39% of the world’s population benefits from water purification services. 780,000 people die every year because of inadequate water and failing purification services, causing dysentery and cholera. This is more than the victims of wars, earthquakes and epidemics.
United Nations development “The programme has set as objective to
grant the whole world’s population access to drinkable water at a low price by 2030. This could help to encourage people to stay in their regions.”
The United Nations development programme has set an objective to grant the whole world’s population access to drinkable water at a low price by 2030. This could help to encourage people to stay in their regions. It is a real challenge, but at BLÜCHER we have the capacity and will to help reach this goal with our water purification systems.
From idea to implementation In 2014, BLÜCHER decided to develop a dual use water purification unit for decentralised applications, which should be highly mobile with airdrop capabilities, low weight, low energy consumption and high efficiency output. The uses are military and peacekeeping, crisis and disaster management, contribution
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to development aid such as in African settlements and villages suffering from contaminated drinking water and no access to water purification.
Time for innovation in water purification The two long established technologies for the treatment of water are ultrafiltration for water with specific pollutions only and reverse osmosis in cases of known or suspected chemical pollution. More recently, however, the increasing presence of dissolved organic compounds and traces of heavy metals, pharmaceutical pollution and pesticides has turned out to be a challenge in both urban and rural environments. The existing technologies have proven incapable of removing some critical substances, as well as having high-energy demands and requiring bulky, heavy and immobile installations. The user community – either small, deployed military forces or disaster management units – has therefore been encouraging the industry to provide innovative solutions with enhanced mobility, energy efficiency and water quality. BLÜCHER’s mobile BWP400 water purification unit addresses those requirements. Low weight and small footprint Thanks to its low weight (approximately 100 kg) and small footprint (the size of a Euro pallet), four operators can move BLÜCHER’s water purification unit. Its electricity consumption (less than 1 kW) keeps energy requirements to a minimum, and in environments with scarce water supplies its average yield of 90% is advantageous. Highly automated, the unit can be easily commissioned and operated, even by personnel with a minimum amount of training. The unit is easily transportable on any small truck or trailer and any transport helicopter, enabling it to be deployed in inaccessible zones and difficult terrains. Innovative filtration concept The BLÜCHER’s BWP400 is designed to cope with a range of difficult water purification challenges. The concept is based on an ultrafiltration step, which retains particulate contamination such as suspended solids, bacteria and viruses, followed by an adsorptive filtration unit operating a special high purity and high capacity synthetic activated carbon bed. 8,000 liters of drinking water are delivered per day in a nearly continuous mode and, depending on the water quality, the unit can produce approximately 200,000 liters of drinking water before cartridge replacement.
