News in brief

SEMIOTIC LABS /SAMOTICS WINS WIS AWARD 2020

‘Le Moment Supreme’. Samotics’ Simon Jagers ‘receives’ the 2020 WIS Award.

‘WHERE TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES LOOK AT THE OUTSIDE, WE LOOK INTO THE HEART OF THE MOTOR’

Water technology company and Water Alliance member Semiotic Labs won the 2020 WIS Award with its innovative SAM4 monitoring unit in December. The company underwent a name change in March 2021 and is now operating under the name Samotics.

SAM4 can predict when and why machines such as wind turbines, production equipment in factories and the conveyor belts at Schiphol Airport break down, especially when they use electric motors. “Where traditional techniques look at the outside, we look into the heart of the motor”, says founder Simon Jagers. Jury chairman Cees Buisman (Wetsus) announced the winner during an online final, which was broadcast from Studio Z in Leeuwarden on Friday, 18 December. The entire broadcast can still be viewed on WaterProof TV.

Online wastewater monitoring

Vechtstromen Water Board [active in the northeast of the Netherlands] is distinguishing itself with a great initiative: the investment of close to €260,000 in various regional innovation projects. The projects include a pilot study focusing on drug residue removal from wastewater at the Emmen purification plant, as well as funds for a regional education project, drought relief and climateproof construction.

Vechtstromen Water Board: nearly €260,000 for innovation projects

Industriewater Eerbeek

On 11 January, Nijhuis Saur Industries and Qsenz installed an i-QUALITY measuring system at Industriewater Eerbeek, about 30 kilometres north of Arnhem. Industriewater Eerbeek provides wastewater treatment for three paper factories in Eerbeek: Coldenhove, DS Smith Paper De Hoop and Mayr-Melnhof. As such, the plant processes around four million cubic meters of water annually. “Industrie Water Eerbeek now has real time insight into the quality of all water flows, so they know what is coming in and how to treat it at any moment”, said Ewout Riteco, sales manager at Qsenz.

ENVAQUA TECHTALK ‘TRENDS & DEVELOPMENTS IN POTABLE- WATER-FED COOLING SYSTEMS’ WEBINAR

TRENDS IN COOLING WATER SYSTEMS

On 21 January, 59 participants from the water tech world attended the ENVAQUA TechTalk ‘Trends & Developments in Potablewater-fed Cooling Systems’ webinar. The consequences of climate change were an important item on the agenda.

Mark Schaap of Waterbedrijf Groningen briefly outlined the future of many water companies around the world: increasing demand for drinking water combined with increasing drought. This calls for a reduction of ‘low-grade use’ of drinking water (e.g. for cooling in industrial processes). Bego Osuna of the Centre of Expertise Water Technology (CEW), located at the WaterCampus Leeuwarden, also discussed the consequences of climate change. She highlighted the importance of an early-warning system for biofilm, as it forms the basis for bacterial growth. The presence of biofilm will become an increasing problem due to climate change, and it is developing resistance to conventional purification methods.

CEW has established a platform to develop newdetection, control and prevention methods.Numerous other topics were also discussed. Petervan der Linde of Holland Water discussed the use ofcopper-silver ionization to prevent biofilm formationin cooling water. Kees Roest of KWR explained theirresearch into metal recovery from wastewater, whichcan sometimes recover milligrams or even gramsper litre. Marcel Oonk of Nijhuis Saur Industriesexplained the role that locally produced ozone canplay in the pretreatment of cooling water. Lastly,Sandor Peper of RWB talked about the large andsmall scale applications of their electrolysis reactorsin cooling tower bypass flows. Water Alliancemember RWB joined the Japanese MetawaterGroup in November 2020. They have an ingenioussystem which periodically scrapes calcium carbonateoff the electrodes.

LG Sonic: working for Aguas Andinas in Chile

LG Sonic, one of the Water Alliance’s most proactive, internationally oriented members, is working on an extraordinary project in Chile. An LG Sonic MPC-Buoy system has been installed in six ‘Pirque Mega Ponds’—the new water reservoirs built by Aguas Andinas [Chile’s largest water company] in Santiago—to prevent algal blooms and guarantee water quality.

Because of climate change, most of the rain in Chile falls in the hot summer months. The heavy rainfall causes mudslides that end up in drinking water reservoirs, leading to longer water treatment processes and putting the continuity of supply at risk. This impact of climate change became apparent in early 2013. Due to the high turbidity of the Maipo River, the water supply from the river had to be cut off, leaving 25 municipalities without access to clean water. Aguas Andinas began building new infrastructure—including the aforementioned six reservoirs—in response to these events. The new system guarantees 34 hours of water autonomy without needing the Maipo River as a source. In 2011, it was only 4 hours before the river’s supply was needed again.

To give an idea of the size: Aguas Andinas’s six new reservoirs have a total surface area of 50 football fields, with a storage capacity of around 1,500 million litres. However, heavy rainfall and warm temperatures are the perfect conditions for algae blooms. To maintain water quality in the Pirque Mega Ponds, Aguas Andinas installed one MPC buoy in each of the six ponds. The technology will control the algae bloom and prevent new blooms.