Ion Exchange Supplies Drinking Water Treatment Systems In Rural Punjab

Ion Exchange (India) Ltd., specialists in water and environment solutions, has supplied drinking water treatment systems for rural communities in Chotian and Mahsinghwala villages (Sangrur district) and Jamdha village (Ferozepur district) in Punjab, as well as point-of-use drinking water purifiers to around 336 rural schools, under the Punjab government’s drinking water treatment programme.

The Punjab government, in its efforts to ensure clean and clear drinking water to various rural areas including schools as a part of its scheme for eradication of drinking water related issues, selected Ion Exchange to partner their efforts in this area. Two major activities that the company implemented were for provision of community drinking water systems for rural areas and point-of-use water purifiers for rural schools.

Community Drinking Water Systems:
Since the raw water source in various areas in the state has different contaminants, the choice of technology was a crucial deciding factor in the government choosing to partner with Ion Exchange for these solutions. The state-of-art fluoride removal systems from Ion Exchange are being used to treat water containing harmful fluoride ions, making it suitable for drinking in the Chotian & Mahsinghwala villages.  In Jamdha village, Ferozepur where the canal water source has turbidity and suspended impurities, the company’s state-of-art continuous sand filters provided an effective solution. These filters by virtue of their unique design are ideally suited for rural areas because they require no operator attention/stoppage for backwash and can also withstand spikes and higher levels of turbidity and suspended solids.

POU Drinking Water Purifiers For Rural Schools:
Under the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission, the Ministry of Rural Development and the Dept. of Drinking Water Supply launched the Jalmani project, to provide non-electric systems for schools in rural India. Ion Exchange has supplied and installed its Eco+Purline point-of-use drinking water purifiers, for disinfection and removal of microbial impurities from water, at 336 schools in  rural districts  in central, north and south Punjab including  Sangrur, Barnala, Patiala, Rajpura,  Bhatinda, Mansa, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ropar, Mohali, Jalandar, Kapurthala, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarntaran, Nawanshehar, Hoshiarpur, Faridkot, Muktsar, Malout, Moga, Ferozepur, Abohar, Fazilka.

Ion Exchange was selected for its proven track record and range of solutions for different water problems. Moreover, the company has undertaken considerable technology development to successfully adapt its treatment systems to make them suitable for rural conditions particularly with respect to sturdiness, ease of operation and maintenance.

For more information:
Nishant Thakre
Ion Exchange (India) Ltd.
Tel: 022 3047 2034

A Drinking Water Plant Supplies Energy in Chiasso, Switzerland

The drinking water treatment plant in the district of Chiasso in the canton of Tessin in Switzerland not only produces clean water from the Sorgente Rovagina spring, which is located 70m above it, but since November 2009, also environment-friendly electrical energy generated by a turbine. This hydropower emanates from the kinetic energy of the water flow derived both from the difference in altitude between the plant and the spring, and pressure equalisation.

In 2007, WABAG Wasser Technology Ltd. refurbished and enlarged the San Giorgio drinking water treatment plant in the district of Chiasso. Since then 8,640 m3/d of raw water have been conducted to the plant from the Sorgente Rovagina spring along a 1,880 m pipeline and then turned into clean drinking water.

The pressure created during this descent is proportional to the geodetic altitude difference between the spring and the filter plant.  Moreover, as the pressure is several times that required for plant operation, a pressure reduction valve was previously needed to decrease it.  This meant that every hour 50 kW of kinetic energy was transformed into sound. This cannot be used, which meant that considerable energy potential was lost.

The use of renewable energy is funded in Switzerland:
With the introduction, as part of the Power Supply Act from January 1, 2008, of a decree regarding the provision of full cost coverage for the feeding of renewable energy into the grid, the use of such energy potential is being funded by the state. In view of this fact, during the autumn of 2008, the operator of the water treatment plant commissioned WABAG with the planning of a small-scale hydropower plant.

A pump turbine was selected from the three standard types of turbine (Pelton turbine with free outflow, counter-pressure Pelton turbine with closed outflow and reverse running pump turbine) on the basis of the natural and specific, plant-related conditions. This turbine is a modified centrifugal pump, which instead of a motor, is equipped with a generator that converts the kinetic energy of the water flow into electrical energy.  The resultant power is fed into the public grid on the spot and paid for in line with the new Power Supply Act.

Using this technology, the drinking water treatment plant has been expanded to include power generation, which not only represents an intelligent contribution to environmental protection, but also reduces plant operating costs.

The turbine at the Chiasso drinking water plant produces 250,000 kW of energy yearly, which is sufficient to supply some fifty 4-person households. The turbine does not cause any deterioration in water quality as the raw water is both cleaned and treated in the downstream filter system.

Arnold Gmünder, Managing Director of WABAG Water Technology Ltd., is optimistic that in line with the Chiasso model, in the near future numerous water treatment plant operators will start to utilise available energy potential, not just in Switzerland, but also other European countries: “This is because using small-scale power plants, the energy costs relating to water treatment  facilities can be reduced, and as the feeding of electricity into the grid is paid for, the ROI on the overall investment can be quickly shortened by an average of three years.”

New Recycling Plant in Delhi to Boost Supply by 11 MGD

The second water recycling plant was recently launched by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) at Wazirabad to improve the supply system by feeding two underground reservoirs in the area. The 11-million-gallons-per-day project is in addition to a 16-MGD recycling plant that was commissioned at Haiderpur last year.

The plant will be the first in the country to recycle water used in the initial stages of treatment so that there is no wastage. About 8% of water goes waste in various stages of treatment. At Haiderpur, it is this eight per cent that is recycled. Only sludge will remain as a byproduct and that too will be transported to Sonia Vihar for use in landfilling.

‘‘The Wazirabad treatment plant was built at a cost of Rs 27.8 crore, a sum that will be recovered within three years of operation. The water will feed two underground reservoirs at Burari and benefit about 2.5 to 5 lakh consumers in their command areas.

DJB’s old plants will now be equipped with recycling units. ‘‘The new plants, including Sonia Vihar, will have an in-built recycling unit. By the time all the four old treatment plants become functional, Delhi will have an additional 45 MGD water at its disposal.

Water from the two already-commissioned recycling plants will benefit about 7-8 lakh residents. A 10-MGD recycling plant at Bhagirathi is undergoing trial runs, while another 8-MGD plant at Chandrawal is likely to be commissioned by March this year.

Delhi Jal Board is setting up two more recycle water treatment plants, the first of their kind in the country, in Bhagirathi and Chandrawal complexes. It already commissioned one in Haiderpur last year. By March 2010, these plants will collectively add a total of 45 MGD to the city’s water supply.

The new recycling plant at Wazirabad complex, which gets 80 per cent of its raw water from river Yamuna, recycles “once treated water” and not raw water. So, the water is more potable.

BGR Energy Wins Contract for Total Water System

The Environment Division of BGR Energy Systems Limited (BGR Energy), the EPC Company for Power projects, has been awarded a contract for a large `Total Water System’ by Adhunik Power & Natural Resources Limited for its 2 x 270 MW Super Thermal Power Plant in Jharkhand. The contract is valued at Rs 15.60 Crore and it will be completed over 10 months.

The scope of the contract includes Design, Engineering, Procurement, Manufacture, Assembly, Testing at manufacture’s works, Packing and Forwarding, Supply, and Delivery including transportation for site and Erection, Testing and Commissioning of Water Treatment Plant for the Power Plant at Padampur in Jharkhand. The works comprising of Pre- Treatment of water with two Clarifiers, 2 streams of De-Mineralization (DM) Plant, a Potable Water System for Plant and a Cooling Water Chemical Treatment Plant.

The contract was awarded to BGR Energy through competitive bidding. Ion Exchange India, Triveni Engineering, Wipro Water, Doshion Veolia Water Solutions, Thermax , VA Tech Wabag were the other competing bidders. Environmental Engineering Division of BGR Energy has successfully executed several similar contracts in the past including a Water Treatment Plant for Thermal Power projects.

Dresser Roots Helps to Meet Urgent Need for Clean Drinking Water in Rural Egyptian Villages

HOUSTON –ROOTS™ blowers, manufactured by Dresser, Inc., a leader in providing highly engineered products for global infrastructure projects, have been specified for a project that is making potable water available to villages in Upper Egypt where it is desperately needed.

The project deploys portable, turnkey water treatment plants to rural villages to purify local water and prevent outbreaks of waterborne illnesses. Typically these plants produce 100 m3 (approximately 26,500 gallons) of clean water per hour.

The Dresser Roots Egyptian distributor, Tartoussieh Engineering of Cairo, supplied 249 of the small ROOTS Universal RAI® blower packages to the three contractors – Veolia, Pharoahs Engineering and Aircraft Factory Helwan – who were selected to provide the water treatment plants. ROOTS blowers were chosen for the project because of their rugged construction and flexible configuration to meet a wide variety of installation specifications.

“ROOTS blowers are very durable and dependable, which makes them ideal for a project when around-the-clock effort is required to supply people with a basic necessity such as clean water,” said Mohyi Tartoussieh, sales manager for Tartoussieh Engineering.

Supplying clean water to its citizenry is a high priority and an ongoing challenge for the Egyptian government. The Nile River provides an estimated 97 percent of the renewable water resources in Egypt. Yet it is subject to pollution by run-off from industrial waste and sewage, the latter because sanitary sewage treatment capacity has not kept pace with the country’s population growth. Conventional water purification processes have sometimes proved inadequate when chlorination treatment has interacted with some of the pollutants and created additional health hazards.

The portable water treatment plants are part of a larger, E£1.3 billion (US $240 million) initiative by the Egyptian government, with support from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the National Organization for Potable Water & Sanitary Drainage. The goal of this environmental initiative is to provide safe drinking water and expand the capacity of the country’s sanitary sewage treatment infrastructure.

Dutch Water Treatment Systems for Haiti

PWN in partnership with Norit X-Flow is supplying seven advanced Perfector-E compact water treatment systems to the Haiti region.

PWN is a water company located in the northern part of The Netherlands and is a world-wide trendsetter in new water treatment technologies. The Norit Group is a world leader in the supply of activated carbon and membrane ultrafiltration.

PWN and Norit X-Flow developed and deployed the Perfector-E immediately after the 2004 tsunami tragedy in Asia. The Perfector-E is a self-contained, easy to use, portable water treatment plant that addresses the needs of people desperate for a reliable source of drinking water.

Each Perfector-E unit has its own unique filtration system, a combination of membrane filtration with UVlight sterilization, based on Norit X-Flow technology. The Perfector-E is completed with a power generator to produce the required electricity and a pump with a floating hose to feed the unit with polluted water. The seven Perfector-E units to be utilized in Haiti will produce a total of 336,000 liters of reliable drinking water per day.

Six PWN engineers, who were extensively trained by Norit, are accompanying the units to assure that they will run properly and assist with the dispensing of water to the Haiti victims.