Commercialising the technology
The method was invented at the University of Bristol, UK, where Professor Joe Quarini, head of mechanical engineering, had a genuine‘ Eureka!’ moment while pondering ways of reducing the amount of water used in the food industry’ s cleaning processes.
The rights to the technology in the water industry were acquired by Suez in 2010, via subsidiary Agbar Environment UK, the commercial arm of the Barcelona water company, Agbar. Agbar was also the owners of Bristol Water, responsible for supplying drinking water to a population of over one million in South-West England.
It was Bristol Water that made the leap of faith with the University of Bristol to industrialise the process, by taking the technology from the laboratory to perform full-scale testing on their own network. Many water companies at the time perceived the process as risky and questioned whether if the pipes were to crack with cold shock, would it block customer supply pipes— and would it actually work?
In 2014, Suez brokered a deal with the University of Bristol to extend its ownership of the technology to cover all industries. Despite a number of corporate name changes, the heritage of the Suez Ice Pigging offer has remained consistent, with a number of original key staff from Bristol Water still involved with the process and its commercial and technical development. Six PhD graduates from the University with specialisms in ice pigging have since joined Suez.
Technical developments
Key technical developments that have given the technology momentum include the ability to clean big pipes— now up to 700mm in networking tech news environment industry infrastructure municipalities
Water Sewage & Effluent January / February 2017 31