BUSINESS LEADER
How ROTEC Is Improving Desalination Technology Around the World
H
igh-recovery reverse osmosis (RO) is becoming a vital solution for both municipal and industrial water portfolios around the world. It is a reliable, drought-resilient water source that in many cases can be more affordable than importing new surface water. RO is also a critical component in the advanced treatment and reuse of municipal wastewater and the mitigation of seawater intrusion into groundwater aquifers. Historically, RO has been limited in application because of its low recovery rate—the ratio of treated water to feed water in the desalination process. In a system with a 75 percent recovery rate, for every 100 gallons of feed water that enter the system, 75 gallons of permeate are produced while the remaining 25 gallons are discharged as concentrated brine. For most inland RO operators, brine is complicated and costly to manage because of environmental restrictions and limited disposal options. That’s where ROTEC comes in. The Israeli company has developed a simple but highly effective Flow Reversal method, designed to significantly boost RO recovery while reducing cleaning frequency, chemical consumption, and overall system maintenance. In this interview, Ben Perlman, president of Smart Water Group, ROTEC’s strategic partner in the United States, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about how ROTEC’s technology works and how it can help municipal and industrial clients face the water challenges of the future.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROTEC.
Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Ben Perlman: It was not an obvious path. I graduated from the Wharton School of Business in 2006 with a fantastic degree but without a clear professional direction. So I did what many smart but directionally challenged young professionals do: I joined a local consulting firm. Consulting, as it turns out, is a business with huge highs and very low lows, and I didn’t enjoy the variability of the job. So after 3½ years in Philadelphia, I was yearning for something that would pique my intellectual curiosity and spark my entrepreneurial passion. In 2010, I moved to Israel and joined up with a group of water entrepreneurs working on some innovative approaches to wastewater treatment. Together, we started building a company called Water Fund Investment Group (WFI
Group), which invested in and managed some the brightest water startups in Israel. Today, we represent four of the leading water technology companies in Israel, specializing in a broad spectrum of water treatment methods, from highrecovery RO to decentralized wastewater reuse, selective filtration, and brineless nitrate reduction from groundwater. We have over 50 employees, three engineering offices, two manufacturing hubs, and a full-service research and development laboratory in Israel. It’s quite an operation! In addition to serving on the board of WFI Group, I’m the president of Smart Water Group, WFI’s commercial arm in the United States. My day-to-day work focuses on strategy and business development. We’re building relationships with consulting and engineering firms that are looking for innovative technologies to give them an edge over the competition. ROTEC is the newest member of our group, and we’re thrilled to be working together. Joshua Dill: Please tell us about ROTEC and what makes its technology so innovative. Ben Perlman: ROTEC’s innovation is based on a principle called Flow Reversal, which is designed to inhibit mineral scaling, the limiting factor in high-recovery operations. If you picture a normal RO pressure vessel with a number of membranes operating in a series, the final membrane will always receive the highest concentration of salt during the treatment process. Over time, mineral scaling will begin to precipitate on the final membrane, reducing flux and eventually requiring maintenance, chemical cleaning, and downtime. ROTEC overcomes this challenge by reversing the direction of the flow through the pressure vessel before the mineral scale begins to form, boosting flux and resolubilizing the salt in the process. By periodically reversing the flow, we reduce scaling and increase output, allowing ROTEC to operate at much higher recovery rates than conventional systems. If a standard two-stage RO system Ben Perlman, president of operates at Smart Water Group. MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM
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