Among the top ten most pressing global issues at the center of waste water treatment and management is technology changes.
From the recent discoveries in non engineered membrane technology, Ultrasonic Sludge Disintegration, Aquaporins, TiO2/Ultra Violet (UV) Photo Catalysis to Forward Osmosis (FO), R&D+I (investigations) – based technologies present a critical opportunities for companies to improve on efficiency in treatment, identify cost-effective approaches and increase profitability. Reduction of energy consumption on equipment is vital to reducing cost of the process too.
Aqualia Infraestructuras is an FCC Aqualia company inside the FCC Group specializing in the design and construction of all types of water processing facilities: purification, urban sewage water processing, reclamation and desalination.
The company has over 25 years experience in wastewater and drinking water treatment plants, Tertiary Treatments and Reuse (TT), Sludge Treatment from Wastewater and Drinking water Treatment Plants, Reverse Osmosis Desalination for Sea Water (SWRO) and Brackish Water (BWRO), among others. Through R&D + I (investigations), it ensures use of recent technologies in its design and manufacture of products.
Owing to its global outlook, FCC Aqualia was ranked 6th globally in water management by population served (Global Water Intelligence, 2013).
Eva Arnaiz, the Area Manager for Southern Africa operations says “We have an important experience in northern Africa with projects in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, and we are approaching Southern Africa with our commercial Office in Pretoria, South Africa.”
In Tunisia, AQUALIA INFRAESTRUCTURAS will design and built the first seawater desalination plant in the island of Djerba.
With current technology, wastewater treatment involves high resources expenditure and, conversely, minimum reuse of the energy these processes could provide.
In FCC Aqualia, two of our most ambitious lines of research, using wastewater as a key factor, is obtaining biofuels (the ALL-GAS project) or producing nutrients for agriculture (the ELAN® process). If possible, this would revolutionize the current wastewater treatment paradigm: what had, until now, been considered an undesirable by-product would become a valuable resource.
The ALL-GAS project seeks to demonstrate the sustainable large-scale production of biofuels based on the low-cost cultivation of microalgae in wastewater while the ELAN® process, seeks in a sustainable way to remove nitrogen and phosphorous from existing wastewater treatment plants
Contributor
Eva Arnaiz Garcia
Area Manager, Southern Africa – Aquaria Infraestructuras
Water Area – FCC Aqualia
FCC Citizen Services
www.fcc.es
www.aqualia-infraestructuras.com
