Applications

Surface and groundwater treatment refers to the processes and methods used to purify water sourced from rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and groundwater wells. These treatments remove impurities, contaminants, and undesirable substances from water so that the finished quality meets government and industry standards.

Water treatment typically involves several stages, including pre-treatment, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection, and pH adjustment. Pre-treatment may include screens or barriers to remove the large debris that can accompany raw water.

Coagulation and flocculation require chemical addition to cluster smaller organic particles into larger clumps, called “floc”. The result is sedimentation, a layer of organics that are easy to remove and facilitate filtration, which filters the remaining suspended particles.

Solutions like BW Water’s Hydro-PAQ™ facilitate the clarification process by hosting the coagulation, flocculation, and settling of solids in a single vessel.

Site-specific surface and groundwater treatment processes can vary based on the water source and desired water quality. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the final product meets the required drinking, irrigation, and/or industrial standards.

Desalination is used particularly in regions facing water scarcity or where seawater is the only viable water source. Desalination plants utilise RO to produce freshwater for domestic, industrial, and agricultural purposes. Reverse osmosis desalination has witnessed remarkable advancements, making it a cost-effective and sustainable solution for coastal areas’ water supply.

Reverse osmosis plays a crucial role in purifying seawater in water treatment by effectively removing dissolved solids, salts, bacteria, viruses, and organic compounds, resulting in clean and potable water.

The reverse osmosis process operates on selective permeation, reversing the natural movement of molecules from regions of higher solute concentration to lower solute concentration. In RO, the feedwater is subjected to pressure greater than the osmotic pressure, enabling water to pass through the semi-permeable membrane. Meanwhile, most dissolved solids and contaminants are rejected and remain in the concentrated reject stream, creating brine.

Desalination is energy intensive. BW Water’s desalination designs also offer an energy recovery device to reduce energy consumption for this energy-intensive process.

BW Water’s experienced team coupled with our partners to design large-scale, fully automated, and competitive desalination systems to improve the environment by protecting the world’s most essential natural resource.

Demineralisation systems mainly incorporate ion exchange (IX) technology to remove dissolved solids from source water in high-purity water production.

IX Technology uses cationic and anionic resins to absorb dissolved impurities from water. The resins require periodic regeneration during operation, performed internally or externally. The internal regeneration method takes place within the demineralisation vessel. The more cumbersome external regeneration method transports IX resins between the demineralisation system and the regeneration process.

BW Water’s experienced team is capable of designing, sourcing, and building IX solutions for any industry that requires high-purity process water.

High-tech industries like semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices require Ultrapure Water (UPW), which is highly purified by a series of systems where the water is free of contaminants like dissolved minerals, salts, organic compounds (TOC), and microorganisms to prevent contamination and maintain the quality of their highly sensitive equipment and products.

UPW is generally produced by merging pre-treatment such as Hydro-PAQ™, Multimedia Filter (MMF), then Ultrafiltration, Reverse Osmosis, and ion exchange technologies with ultraviolet light and ozone to remove total suspended solids, dissolved solids, salts, organic compounds (TOC), and microorganisms. The final product is water with a resistivity above 18 mega-ohms, several orders of magnitude higher than tap water.

BW Water’s experienced team has a strong experience background and knowledge know-how in designing, sourcing, and constructing high-level Ultrapure Water for any industry that requires high-purity process water.

The steam cycle drives energy production in coal-fired and natural gas cogeneration plants by passing through a series of turbines. However, recycled process water accumulates soluble minerals and impurities that damage power plant infrastructure and equipment. Energy producers rely on Condensate Polishing systems to maintain their steam systems.

The Condensate Polishing system is a unique ion exchange (IX) resin application that removes soluble contaminants to protect high-pressure boilers. The resins require periodic regeneration during operation, performed internally or externally. The internal regeneration method takes place within the polishing system. The more cumbersome external regeneration method transports IX resins between the polishing system and the regeneration process.

BW Water’s team has strong knowledge in both internal and external regeneration methods for polishing system, not limited to designing, constructing and commissioning a Condensate Polishing Plant.

The Solar industry’s wastewater contains high levels of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), heavy metals, highly toxic chemicals (fluoride and ammonia) and pathogens, which harm the environment and human health. But conventional wastewater treatments are energy and resource-intensive for the industry’s unique wastewater.

BW Water accepted the challenge of creating a sustainable solution to separate and recycle valuable heavy metal materials from production waste streams. Our industrial wastewater treatment system can be tailored to Hydrofluoric (HF) acid wastewater treatment to keep solar manufacturers compliant with discharge limits worldwide.

Solar industry manufacturers are typically required to treat

• Source water for general use
• Demineralised water for production use
• Industrial wastewater treatment
• Hydrofluoric acid treatment
• Ammonia treatment

Semiconductor manufacturing is essential to producing modern electronic devices. However, the process involves chemicals and procedures that generate toxic wastewater latent with heavy metals and acids.

Treating this wastewater is crucial to meeting regulatory requirements and minimising the environmental and public health impacts of semiconductor manufacturing. BW Water’s extensive treatment process knowledge makes us a partner to rely on to safeguard the environment. Semiconductor wastewater treatment involves several stages, such as physical, chemical, and biological treatments.

Semiconductor industry manufacturers are typically required to treat

• Source water for general use
• Ultrapure water for production use
• Industrial wastewater treatment
• Hydrofluoric acid treatment
• Heavy Metal Waste Treatment System
• Cyanide Treatment System
• High Value Metal Waste Recovery System

Industrial wastewater treatment systems ensure that industrial discharge water complies with the effluent discharge limits safeguarding the environment. BW Water designs, procures, and constructs industrial wastewater solutions such as oil and suspended solids removal, chemical treatment, dewatering, and High-Pressure Reverse Osmosis.

The treatments reduce total suspended solids (TSS), heavy metals, toxic chemical substances, and organic matter. BW Water can deliver fully automated systems, including chemical feed, dewatering, monitoring, control, and instrumentation.

BW Water also accepts the challenge of creating a sustainable solution for industrial wastewater treatment and can use these same treatments to build process water reuse systems.

Biological wastewater treatment cultivates bacterial cultures of protozoa and other microbes in suspended growth or attached growth systems to degrade organic contaminants in wastewater. The biological wastewater treatment process includes three major steps:

• Aerobic treatment step uses oxygen to promote aerobic microorganisms; the Anoxic treatment step refers to the absence of free oxygen but the presence of bound oxygen such as nitrite or nitrate. This step removes nitrogen-based compounds from wastewater and helps control the pH and alkalinity; and Anaerobic treatment step refers to a total absence of free oxygen (O2) or bound oxygen (NO2, NO3). This stage promotes anaerobic bacteria.

BW Water is capable of combining biological treatment such as CSAS or MBBR technologies with Hydro-PAQ™ technology to treat large volumes of wastewater with a reduced footprint and less energy consumption than conventional treatment methods.

These technologies provide an Aerobic-Anoxic-Anaerobic system and clarification to reduce the amount of total suspended solids (TSS), heavy metals, and organics such as BOD or COD.

Waste recovery systems are increasingly being applied in the semiconductor, solar, and mining industries to address their environmental impact and resource demand. These industries generate significant amounts of wastewater containing valuable resources that can be recovered and reused.

In the semiconductor and solar industries, wastewater reuse technology can simultaneously treat production wastewater while recovering metals like copper, silver, palladium, and gold. The purified reuse water and recovered precious metals reduce the manufacturing process’s reliance on freshwater and newly mined materials, saving semiconductor manufacturers on operational costs.

BW Water develops environmentally friendly solutions tailored for managing production waste streams. Our team can design, furnish, and construct custom solutions that recycle and reuse valuable heavy metal materials in subsequent production cycles, fostering sustainability.

Water reuse applications are gaining widespread use in the industrial and municipal wastewater treatment space to address environmental impact and increasing water resource challenges. Water reuse or recycling depends on wastewater treatment systems that can bring water to a high enough quality to be reused repeatedly.

Often implemented at the end of a traditional biological wastewater treatment plant, effluent is further treated in the “tertiary” stage. The tertiary stage involves a filter that polishes the wastewater effluent of phosphorus and bacteria. The process can also rely on chemical addition to remove any remaining impurities.

After treatment, the high-quality effluent can be reused in many ways, like irrigating landscapes, retreating as process water.

BW Water’s experienced team designs, furnishes, and builds water reuse/recycling solutions for any industry wanting to secure this valuable resource.