The inner workings of the modular water treatment unit.
Images courtesy of Pall
Plug and play water treatment units
While municipalities bemoan that they cannot supply safe, potable water to their communities, plug-and-play treatment units are sitting in Switzerland, waiting for deployment …
By Kim Kemp
Last year, Pall Water unveiled a new portfolio of mobile water solutions that can be rapidly deployed to ensure safe, reliable water production for communities and industries around the world, with flexible packaging and pre-engineered systems for both temporary and permanent deployments. The company is spearheading global efforts to make reused water safe to use and drink around the world— vital in drought-stricken South Africa.
Prei Instrumentation is a recognised leader in the process, measurement, and control industry, and is the South African distributor for the online liquid analysers from Hach Company, which is part of the Danaher Water Quality Group, together with Pall Corporation and the Trojan Group.
This Water Quality Group is working with the existing established companies and their distributors to market these technologies. Hach introduced the MD of Prei Instrumentation, Steve Herbst, to the Pall technology, which he describes as comparing favourably with existing technologies.
“ With a desalination plant, reverse osmosis membranes are used to treat water. But you must first clean the water before it passes through the reverse osmosis membrane,” he says and continues,“ The biggest desalination plant in the world is in Israel. Above the plant is a massive sand bed, through which the saltwater initially passes before going through the reverse osmosis membranes.” This pre-filtration is necessary for reverse osmosis.
The Pall filters cut out all pre-filtration, doing away with all the chemicals to settle out the solids, before the water passes through the reverse osmosis membranes.
He points out that the system is not designed to do reverse osmosis,“ but in the drought-stricken areas where there are wastewater treatment plants( as in Cape Town), we can put that treated wastewater through the Pall filters and get quality potable water. You can also buy the plant / container, which is USD525 000, or you can rent it for USD25 000 per month, and when the drought is over, you just hand it back,” he adds.
To ship the unit from Switzerland( via Belgium and France) costs approximately USD8 000.
38 Water Sewage & Effluent September / October 2017