Archive for December, 2015

Voltea’s award-winning water desalination technology, CapDI©, has now made its way into the Australia and New Zealand market! This expansion now represents four continents of successful integration, including Asia, Europe, and North America.

“We are proud to confirm we have reached an agreement with Australia’s Hydrasyst to be a distributor of Voltea CapDI water softening technology in Australia and New Zealand. The combination of Voltea’s CapDI technology for TDS control, and Hydrasyst’s Grey BoxTM hollow fiber ceramic membrane filtration technology delivers unparalleled performance in water reuse applications,” said Voltea’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Bryan Brister.

Hydrasyst is an innovative water technology company that provides sustainable energy and water treatment solutions. Hydrasyst will be a distributor of Voltea technology for commercial laundry and cooling towers in commercial buildings and shopping centers where controlling TDS lowers operating costs and environmental impact.

Voltea and Hydrasyst have just completed the inaugural installation of their respective technologies at a commercial laundry facility in Melbourne, Australia. The technical combination allows over 90% re-use of the water in the commercial laundry operation and yields significant energy cost savings as water treatment and TDS removal, all while undertaken at the temperature that commercial laundries wash their linen. Mr. Kyle Wolff, CEO of Hydrasyst said, “After an extensive search for a superior technology to reverse osmosis, we are pleased that our mutually beneficial cooperation in the commercial laundry industry has now led to a distribution agreement for a broader market in Australia and New Zealand.”

The process begins with laundry water flowing through the Hydrasyst Grey BoxTM system where it is filtered of all suspended solids and soils left in the water after laundering, but surfactants and detergents remain for reuse. After this step, all constituents have been removed from the water that would make it suitable for reuse in a laundry application, except dissolved salts (TDS). TDS must also be removed from the water to prevent greying of linens during subsequent uses.

This is where Voltea’s CapDI is introduced. Once the water has been treated by the Grey BoxTM, it then flows into Voltea’s CapDI, which occupies a footprint of less than 1m2, where all dissolved salts are removed. Ultimately, it is the combination of these technologies that provides the total water treatment required to make the water suitable for reuse in the laundry, and a key feature of the combined technologies is that both systems treat the water at the temperature that laundries operate (40-60°C). Treating the water at temperature is of critical importance as this is where substantial energy savings are realized since re-heating the water before the next laundry cycle is not necessary. In fact, up to 50% energy savings are documented, as well as up to 80% water recovery.

When the laundry water enters into the CapDI system for salt removal, the energy required to remove the salt is approximately 0.5 kWh/m3. In this application, the end-product recycled laundry water still has the surfactants and cleaning agents in it, which allows less detergent to be used in future cycles and also saves on operational costs.

Arguably the most important molecule on the planet is water; and more than any other single molecule, it is essential to sustaining life. So why do we take it for granted? Why do we waste so much of what we need to survive? As the world comes to grips with this enormous challenge, the answer is more efficiently using this precious resource, and water reuse is key.

Interestingly, citizens in developed nations consume far greater daily amounts of water on a per capita basis than citizens of developing nations owing to industrialization itself. On-demand energy, 24 hours a day, and the availability of clean water is critical to the growth, prosperity and quality of life of global citizens, and these needs place ever-increasing demands on natural resources.

In real-world issues, water reuse can help arid regions of the world sustain growth and development, as well as improve the health of the population. In business applications, water reuse can help conserve energy and proves to be cost-effective with incentives given in a world leaning more and more towards “going green” and being energy efficient. With water usage tripling over the last 50 years, water reuse has become a necessity.

At Voltea, we realize the importance of water reuse and specialize in cost-effective technology that advances the reuse in residential and industrial applications. Capacitive Deionization (CapDI©) controls water composition by removing dissolved impurities, thus improving water quality. The advantage of CapDI in an industrial system is that the reduction of TDS (total dissolved solids) is tunable, chemical consumption is low, and there is low systematic maintenance.

An example of an industry that relies on significant daily volumes of clean water is the global commercial laundry business. A typical commercial laundry will consume 250 m3/day of potable water, as well as discharge approximately 200 m3/day of wastewater. The feed and wastewater costs typically represent over 50% of total operating expenses for these industrial companies. It is important to note that the water sent to drain in this critically important industry suffers elevated levels of dissolved salts due to the cleaning process.

Voltea’s technology is revolutionizing this industry because it has proven capable of controlling TDS below levels that would otherwise result in gray linens. Equally as important, Voltea technology treats laundry water at elevated temperatures, without first having to cool the water, treat it, and then re-heat for use. All of which would be an energy intensive, expensive process. CapDI’s ability to remove TDS at temperatures used in commercial laundries is allowing much greater water reuse efficiency in this critically important industry. Moreover, Voltea’s TDS management reduces water consumption and discharge, which results in energy savings and cost reductions that matter!

Dan Gates, President at American Water Purification (AWPI) commented “Voltea and their team has delivered a TDS trimming solution that opens the door to an unprecedented opportunity for savings in hot water reuse for commercial laundry facilities.” Voltea has such a unique application for the commercial laundry industry where CapDI is the only successful technology in the world that can help this industry leap forward towards being more energy efficient and become a leader in water reuse.

In Western Australia, Voltea has integrated CapDI into a water reuse system for commercial laundry to help address the dramatic water scarcity across the country. Sue Murphy, CEO of the Western Australia Water Corp noted “Western Australia has seen climate change happen faster and earlier than almost anywhere else on the planet. In the last 15 years, the water from rain into our dams has dropped to one-sixth of what it used to be before that.” If Voltea can help these companies with this technology now, water reuse can quickly become a staple in not only the commercial laundry industry, but also any industry where water reuse is of critical importance.

Another industry in which Voltea is making significant progress with commercializing CapDI is industrial cooling towers. Trimming the TDS of cooling tower make-up water by removal of up to 90% of the incoming salt delivers an immediate increase in cycles of concentration. Multiple global installations are yielding an average 20% reduction in make-up water, 40%-60% reduction in wastewater, and a full 60% reduction in the use of anti-scalants and anti-corrosion chemicals.

Voltea is delivering measurable benefits through a powerful economic message combined with meaningful environmental benefits.

Voltea’s capacitive deionization (CapDI©) technology was specified for removal of total dissolved solids (TDS) at laundering temperatures to enable maximum recovery of recycled water in a commercial laundry.

Experienced commercial laundry operators know the limiting factor to using recycled water in a laundry facility is removing total dissolved solids (TDS) from the water. Most operators agree the presence of TDS above 750 to 1,000 ppm will result in gray linens. Voltea’s award-winning CapDI® technology removes TDS from laundry water at the temperatures commercial laundry operators wash linens, 40ºC to 60ºC, so there’s no need to cool the water before removing TDS and no excessive energy costs to reheat before the next wash cycle.

THE CHALLENGE

Facing water shortages like most of the rest of the country, one Georgia municipality imposed a 25,000 gallon per day discharge limit on commercial users as part of an approach to conserving precious potable water resources. The result of this daily discharge limit meant a local commercial laundry operator was constrained to operating their facility for only 8 hours per day until reaching their daily discharge limit of 25,000 US gallons of used laundry water. Growth of their business was constrained to their daily allotment of potable water.

The laundry operator began researching technologies to enable recycling laundry water, while ensuring high quality bright, white linens. Thorough research showed a variety of technologies could do everything necessary to the water to make it suitable for recycling in the laundry except remove the total dissolved solids (TDS) while the water remained at laundering temperatures of 40ºC to 60ºC. The client installed an advanced oxidation process (AOP) to treat the spent laundry water, but still had no way of controlling TDS at laundering temperatures.

TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED FLEXIBLE SOLUTION

Voltea responded to the client’s needs by providing an IS4 CapDI© unit within three weeks. Occupying an incredibly small footprint of approximately 1 square yard on the laundry floor, Voltea’s IS4 removes TDS from the recycle stream at a flow rate of up to 48L/min of recycled water. Moreover, because TDS removal is so effective, Voltea’s IS4 does not need to treat the overall recycle stream; rather, the purified stream from the IS4 is blended into the overall recycle stream to maintain overall TDS below 750ppm. Introduction of the IS4 allowed the operator to expand to 2 shifts/day without exceeding their daily discharge limit on waste water, and removing TDS from the recycle stream ensured superior quality, bright white linens.

PERFORMANCE DATA

It was determined that the water could be recycled until it reached a maximum TDS of 1,000ppm, at which time the water was discharged to drain to prevent graying of linens. Voltea provided the laundry facility with this prediction of how long the water could be used in a recycle loop with, and without, CapDI©, before triggering the discharge required at 1,000ppm TDS (includes a margin of error of ±10%):