| Feature
Wastewater treatment company's
global expansion
WATER treatment technology that can
clean some of the world’s most polluted
waste liquids cheaply, quickly and
efficiently is being prepared for global
deployment.
icromet has designed a water treatment
machine in South Australia, which uses
electrolysis to remove pollutants from
contaminated water such as sewage,
grey water, and industrial effluents.
The company signed a
Memorandum of Understanding with Chinese industrial
group Dadongwu in Adelaide last week and is setting
up a manufacturing plant in South Australia.
Micromet Engineering Sales Director Andrew
Townsend said the company’s six-module machines
could clean 12-litres a second and could be deployed in
a standard 40-foot shipping container.
He said most other water treatment technologies
usually took 24 to 36 hours to treat wastewater.
“The residence time in our machine from when the
dirty water drops in one end to when it starts to flow out
the other end is around 50 minutes,” Townsend said.
“We’re shipping them in shipping containers because
pretty much you just drop the container in, affix pipes to
it and attach power and make sure it’s all working and
you can literally commission it in a day or two days,
which is very different from having to build a traditional
system which can take months and months to
construct.”
The process uses continuous flow electrolysis
methods with special anti passivation technology that
has eluded such systems in the past. The Micromet
equipment is also very energy efficient, using just
0.25KWH to process 1000 litres compared to a reverse
osmosis system that can require 20-40KWH to process
the same amount.
Micromet has been manufacturing mainly irrigation
control technology in South Australia – which has an
advanced water industry because it is the driest state on
the driest continent on Earth - for two decades. But the
company was forced to look for new opportunities in
wastewater treatment when a devastating drought
across southeast Australia from 2007-2012 almost
brought the it to its knees.
Until now the company has been mainly focused on
wastewater treatment research and development,
producing only a handful of commercial bespoke
machines. The new plant will aim to produce 50 sixmodule machines a month within a year.
“What Micromet has developed is a fair bit cheaper in
terms of the actual machine in the first instance and on
top of that is a fair bit cheaper to run than most other
types of systems,” Townsend said.
“We’re up to Generation 3, we’re imagining
Generation 4 will be our first solar powered model and
Generation 5 we’re hoping will literally be able to float
on a dam, be powered by solar and treat the dam while
floating on it.”
Micromet took a prototype machine to China in
November and successfully treated three highly
contaminated industrial wastewaters - electroplating
water, machining emulsion and garbage permeate as
part of a demonstration.
Non-industrial water treatment applications include
sewage and mining waste such as fracking water.
The treated “A Class” water can then be re-used in
factories or mines or used for irrigation. The pollutants
removed from the wastewater account for about six per
cent of the original volume.
“My hope is that we can eventually get to the point
where we can return the treated water to the
environment,” Townsend said.
“Water doesn’t wear out - many factories will be able
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to use the water again and again.”
Townsend said the Chinese Government had made
water and air pollution a priority in its five-year plan.
“That’s a massive market for us because at the
moment there’s no incumbent technologies,” he said.
“It’s estimated that China will make up 50 per cent of
the world water treatment market over the next five
years.
“We’ve estimated that our slice of the pie could be
anywhere up to $20 billion Australian dollars over the
next five to seven years.
“India is also going gangbusters so when we’re
trying to plan this facility we don’t want it to be just
maxed out producing machines for China, we want to
have some additional capacity to supply other markets
as well.”
Micromet partnered with a Canadian business to
create a joint venture called Living Sky Water Solutions
in 2014 after Canada’s Water Security Agency outlawed
the “lagooning” method of treating effluent in small
communities. Last month it signed a deal to build a one
megalitre per day wastewater treatment plant for the
prairie town of Kerrobert in Saskatchewan, Canada.
“We have another five (Ca