Optimising the Environmental Footprint for Water Treatment Plants

In 10 years of partnership, Degrémont and GE (France) have enabled more than 60 local authorities and industries (refining and petrochemicals in particular) to save more than 40 billion litres of water, to reinforce the protection of their natural environment and to reduce the environmental footprint of their used water treatment installations, thanks to the use of GE's bioreactor with Ultrafor membrane, equipped with Zeeweed membranes.

The water purified in this way was able to be reused in industrial processes or for irrigation and the watering of parkland, where the regulations permit, thereby preserving the water resources by limiting recourse to drinking water. In many situations, such as in Cannes (Aquaviva), Nouméa (James Cook), this technology has contributed to significantly improving the quality of the water output and to reducing the environmental footprint of the installations due to its compactness in comparison with conventional clarification-disinfection technologies. An international company and a subsidiary of Suez Environnement, Degrémont designs, builds, operates and equips water treatment installations for local governments and industries.

Emphasising the environmental innovations and performances which its partners achieved by implementing its technologies, the GE Ecomagination prize was awarded to Degrémont for the water savings achieved by re-utilisation, the protection of resources and nature and the reduction in environmental footprints. For the six industrial plants located in France, China and Italy, the savings in water exceeded 40 billion litres of water.

“Reusing poorer quality water for industrial applications allows our customers to avoid using valuable drinking water as feed source. By providing more than 60 of our customers with GE’s ZeeWeed technology has allowed us to help them collectively reuse more than 40 billion litres of water,” said Pierre Yves Pouliquen (Director of Degrémont's French business and sponsor of the Degrémont /GE W&PT) partnership. "We are honoured that GE has awarded this prestigious prize to us. We are also very satisfied with this genuine partnership which, in 10 years, has enabled GE to make such significant progress in the performance of its membranes, thanks to our construction and operational feedback. For our part, we have also been able to significantly improve the process in which the membranes are integrated in order to be more efficient, particularly in terms of energy consumption, another major challenge in sustainable development".

The GE Ecomagination prize was recently awarded to Degrémont during a ceremony to celebrate the 10 years of partnership between the two companies, and the more than 60 Degrémont sites equipped with the GE technology.

“We have noticed an ongoing trend that industrial users around the world are focusing more on decreasing their water footprint in order to reuse water, lower costs and minimise environmental impact. Degrémont and its customers are examples to follow concerning the manner in which certain local authorities and petrochemical and refining industries can successfully reuse water" said Yuvbir Singh, general manager, engineered systems — Water and Process Technologies for GE Power & Water.

All of the projects used GE’s ZeeWeed 500 reinforced, hollow-fibre membranes, which have been proven over more than two decades of wastewater treatment and water reuse applications. ZeeWeed 500 technology is an advanced filtration technology that separates particles, bacteria and viruses from water or wastewater. Nearly 1,000 plants worldwide use this technology to produce superior quality.

Ultrafiltration uses a semi-permeable membrane barrier to reject suspended solids, bacteria, viruses, endotoxins and other pathogens in water to produce treated water known as permeate with very high purity and low silt density. It serves as a pretreatment for surface water, seawater and biologically treated municipal effluent before reverse osmosis and other membrane water treatment systems. Ultrafiltration also is used in industry to separate suspended solids from solution. GE’s ZeeWeed ultrafiltration membranes offer an unmatched combination of ultrafiltration performance, energy efficiency, durability, fast installation, ease of operation and reliability.