5 minute read
Raymond Hernandez, Erkrath No more dead through contaminated water! Potable water – easily produced everywhere
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
Every 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.
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 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.
Dual-use prototypes successfully tested by NATO Prototypes of the BLÜCHER’s BWP400 water treatment unit took part in NATO’s Smart Energy demonstration activities during a civil-military exercise (the Capable Logistician 2015 – CL15) organised in Hungary. The unit drew significant interest from military as well as civilian attendees with disaster management and humanitarian or development aid backgrounds. At temperatures between 36° and 40° Celsius, the unit successfully proved its fitness for use in military and disaster response environments. It was deployed and relocated several times, demonstrating its high mobility and performance under varying requirements. Thanks to its low energy consumption and resulting connectivity to a range of energy sources, e.g. solar panels, the system can be operated autonomously, waiving the need for a continuous fuel supply and the related logistic. Easily and quickly customisable to various water and energy sources as well as to different water supply and storage equipment, it successfully demonstrated its interoperability and hence its decisive role in a smart energy environment under high demanding security and reliability requirements.
Lessons learned and consequences Water treatment and supply is vital everywhere. To guarantee drinkable water in developing countries without sufficient access to treatment capacities, suitable water treatment systems
Raymond Hernandez
has been Head of Business Develop
ment Water Treatment at BLÜCHER
GmbH in Erkrath since 2017
Born in 1958 Hernandez earned his
LL.M. (International / European Law
Photo: private
and Political Sciences) in Paris and is a special postgraduate in European Law.
He has held, among others, these positions: 2004-2016: Project Director International, GELSENWASSER AG, Gelsenkirchen; 1989-1998: International Business Development, Veolia Environnement, Paris; 1983-1989: International Project Manager DG DEVCO, European Commission, Brussels.
will save people from epidemics and allow for better live quality. In the fields of military as well as civil peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, energy-efficient, mobile water supply units bring a decisive performance and safety leverage. Trials under real operation conditions showed that such water production systems must be customisable. The experience gathered during the CL15 exercise and consecutive discussions revealed the need for current technology standards for decentralised drinking water production to be reviewed focusing on enhanced mobility, autarky, performance and safety.
The high mobile BWP 400 with a weight of 100 kg needs 1,5 kVA ( = 1 Solar Panel) for the production of 400 l/h potable water. Low operator skill, ruggedized construction and low logistical requirement make BWP400 the ideal water purification system for settlements, housing at construction sites as well as medical stations or mining in regions under development to guarantee continuous supply of potable water.
