The treatment and the gestión of the water like central subjects in drinktec 2013; the recycling of the water

The treatment and the gestión of the water will be two central subjects of the 16 to 20 September 2013 in drinktec 2013 in Munich. The attention centres increasingly in the recycling of the water. All the big international groups cerveceros and the companies of manufacture of soft drinks have formulated put ambitious to reduce his footprint hídrica that can not reach without internal circuits of treatment of the water. The technical solutions offered by the industry provider will be able to see in the Fair World-wide Leader of the Industry of Beverages and Liquid Foods.

Like a conductive thread will visit all the pavilions of drinktec 2013 the moderate use, that is to say, profitable, of the water like natural resource, in particular the pavilions To3, To4 and B2, in which the display units will offer his proposals. The Prof. Dr. Stefan Schildbach of the University of Fulda, Department of Technology of the Foods, describes the current situation of the following way: “The sustainability does not detain in front of the treatment of the water. The potentials of saving that does so alone some years considered too little substantial and economically unfeasible for the industry, result increasingly interesting. I refer me, for example, to the treatment of the pertinent water of the wash of the filters, or to the increase of the performance of the systems of ósmosis reverse. Also they will win importance the strategies of regulation and control”.

But, what mean all this in concrete for the technician of separation applied? “From it does some years, the tendency aims clearly to the separation by membranes. Like this it is so much in the ósmosis reverse for the desalinisation of water as in the field of the leak”, aims Wolfgang Winkler, technical director of EUWA H.H. Eumann GmbH. They exist good reasons for this development: the installations of membranes work of automatic and continuous form, almost do not require chemical products and the waste water of the treatment no salan with the products of regeneration. Besides, the membranes are now more economic and effective, and the necessary pressesure and, therefore, the consumption of power have reduced significantly.

But still it follows having applications in which the exchanger of ions or even the most classical of all the methods, the ablandamiento with cal, follow having his reason to be, signals Winkler: “The ablandamiento with cal, for example, with a suitable composition of the water, represents an operative cost very low and a very small quantity of residual water. Given the time of usual operation of a plant of treatment of the water, of 20 years, these two factors are essential. Besides, the cal is a natural product. The ablandamiento with cal can be, therefore, an attractor trucks alternative for the companies that orient in strict ecological norms, as well as for the traditional breweries artesanales. Up to now, however, the sizes of the necessary tanks for the ablandamiento with cal supposed a big disadvantage, especially by the prices of the current steel. For this reason, we have combined the ablandamiento with cal with the leak by membranes, in such a way that we no longer require of these tanks and can work of automatic form”.

The experts continue seeing a big potential of future in the electrodesionización (EDI), that applies at present for example in the production of semiconductors like last stage of the pure treatment of the water. In the process EDI, the ions of the drinkable water separate by means of a system of exchangers of resin. At the same time it applies a voltage of continuous current generating ions H₂Or and OH that regenerates of continuous way the resin. This regeneration is also the reason that this process have achieved to enter in new fields of application. Since the tension of necessary continuous current for the regeneration can generate with a photovoltaic system, what allows to advance to a plant of independent production.

But a modern gestión of the water no only means to prepare sufficient cool water. Also it means to separate the resource of the currents of waste water produced and give them back to the circuit. For this end install increasingly plants of membranes, and the Prof. Schildbach Warns that it does not be necessary to forget a thing: “When recycling the residual water of the production, in the last years have llevar a big number of projects R&D that could not resolve of the all the essential problem of the precocious blockade of the membranes. We see also in the every time greater number of systems of membrane that, in individual cases, could realise with big success the recycling of the water. Here still we will be able to deepen en el futuro the knowledges. Like this then , it will be very interesting to see what new approaches and solutions will present the display units in drinktec 2013”.

Nevertheless, the systems of membranes no only are recovering the water of the flows of the waste water. Also they use to optimise the production of biogás from his organic loads. Because the waste water can contribute of significant form like “energetic drink” to cover the demand of power and heat. For this, the biogás generated in the

anaerobic degradation of the organic load of the waste water turns into electricity and heat in a plant of cogeneration (CHP). The efficiency of this process can increase with the process of membranes of an expositor of drinktec, that separates of continuous form the CO₂ contained in the biogás. Like this it generates natural gas that in the first place has a power calorífico upper and, second, can use in standard burners. And as in the sustainability treats to close an and again the circuits, the CO₂ separate of the biogás could transform besides in natural gas with the hydrogen produced by means of the solar power. But here still it is missing a long way for visiting, that perhaps can discern in the next appointment of drinktec.