In 2015, the term that seems to define the needs of populations around the world, and that has become a mission in its own right, is water reuse. From residential to commercial and industrial consumers, water reuse is becoming more and more essential to our daily survival. The earth’s population is expected to climb fully 35%, that’s 2.5 billion more people, by 2050, meaning that pressure on global water resources is increasing at an even faster rate than ever before. The need for technologies that cost-effectively enable water reuse is currently at its peak of importance. Voltea has developed a new technology that removes TDS (total dissolved solids) more cheaply and efficiently than any other technology, and does so at high temperatures. The introduction of this technology means water reuse can become an affordable and viable option today.

Over the last 15 years, innovations in many fields have so rapidly developed that keeping up with the ever-changing technologies has not only been difficult, but also very expensive. In the water reuse field, there have been numerous technologies that have been developed in order to help solve the water issues we have at hand; the same issues that we have been dealing with for many years now. These technologies are particularly important for industries that consume significant amounts of water during normal operation such as commercial laundries and textile cleaning.

Water reuse not only helps save the planet by consumers and businesses becoming more environmentally friendly, but it also saves costs in both personal and industrial applications. Voltea, a water technology company located in the Netherlands, has proven a way for water reuse to be a more commonly practiced concept around the world. Voltea’s Capacitive Deionization technology, CapDI©, deionizes brackish water at the lowest economic and environmental cost of any globally available technology. CapDI© is a simple, innovative, and most importantly cost-effective way to remove TDS from water.

In commercial laundry, TDS above 750-1,250 ppm causes dull, gray linens, so effective use of recycled laundry water has been limited by the inability to affordably and reliably remove TDS at high temperatures. Current technologies, such as reverse osmosis (RO), require water to be cooled below laundering temperatures before TDS removal, which means it must then be reheated for laundering. This is expensive, time consuming, and now unnecessary. By removing TDS at laundering temperatures, Voltea customers realize exceptional operational, chemical, and energy costs savings. Commercial laundries across the globe have reduced their total water consumption up to 90% per year by implementing Voltea’s CapDI© technology. This technology recovers up to 90% of the water it treats, and does so at the high temperatures that commercial laundry facilities operate (140°F/60°C).

CapDI© is a simple 2-step process wherein water flows between electrodes, where the electrode surfaces are separated from the water by membranes that selectively allow positive or negative ions to pass. In the first step, purification, saline water passes between oppositely charged electrodes which electrostatically remove dissolved ions, leaving pure water flowing out of the cell. In the second step, regeneration, feed water flushes through the cell at a lower flow rate, while electrode polarity is reversed. Ions are then rejected from the electrode surface, concentrated in the flow channel, and flushed from the cell before the cycle is repeated. Moreover, a critically important feature of the technology is that the amount of TDS removed from the water is tunable.

For example, a laundry operator could set an upper limit of 1,000 ppm TDS, above which recycled water would no longer be suitable for laundering. In such a case CapDI© would remove TDS as the water was recycled for repeated washes without allowing the water to reach the upper limit of 1,000 ppm, and if the laundry operator wanted an even lower threshold, CapDI© would simply remove more salt with each recycle loop. The addition of CapDI© to the treatment system provides a longer run time and an increased number of recycling cycles before the water reaches the TDS limit, thus saving the facility on water intake and recovery, as well as providing essential energy savings by doing so at laundering temperatures.

Voltea reuse solutions work across all laundry intakes, such as healthcare, hospitality, uniforms/industrial, and food & beverage. These commercial laundry intakes make up the approximately 90,000 commercial laundry facilities globally, which combined wash an estimated 55 million tons of textiles annually. If the commercial laundry field alone entirely converted their operations to adopt Voltea’s water reuse solution, CapDI©, they would make a monumental difference in water usage around the world.