Veolia and NanoH2O to Partner (Water Desalination Report) - November 10, 2009

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has entered a five-year partnership with California’s NanoH2O to jointly explore opportunities for a new, higher flux SWRO membrane product. Under the agreement, which is best characterized as a technology partnership, NanoH2O will supply its 8-inch diameter nanocomposite seawater elements to Veolia Water Solutions for use in SWRO projects.

Finn Nielsen, a Veolia board member, said the first objective would be to identify piloting opportunities in the key geographies – including the Mediterranean, Middle East and Australia – that are able to provide good operating data over a six to twelve month period.

Nielsen told WDR, “We’re always looking for the newest and greatest technology to maintain a leadership position in the market, and we think their technology has a lot to offer. Before undertaking a full-scale project, we expect to follow a natural progression that begins with retrofitting individual trains or smaller installations.”

The new membrane technology was originally developed by UCLA professor Eric Hoek before NanoH2O took over its commercialization three years ago. Since then, the company’s scientists have hand-cast over 8,000 membranes for bench testing and have pilot tested its four- inch diameter elements in a SWRO pilot unit for two years at Port Hueneme, California.

NanoH2O chief executive Jeff Green said the membranes are a true composite membrane – not a coating – where porous, inorganic and hydrophilic nanoparticles are encapsulated within a polyamide membrane film. “We have shown we can get a salt rejection greater than 99.7 percent while operating our nanocomposite membranes at a flux of at least 30 gfd [50 Lmh]. Depending on how the membranes are applied, they can provide significantly higher production, or conversely, reduced energy consumption,” he said.

Nielsen likes the fact that the elements are directly interchangeable with those in existing installations. “Best of all, they are competitively priced with conventional elements,” he said.

NanoH2O is currently completing construction of its own membrane manufacturing facility. It will begin to produce elements by the end of the year and will be testing them in the field by the middle of 2010. The company said it expects to be able to support many small and medium-sized installations by the end of next year and to be producing tens of thousands of membranes annually.

In a paper to be presented tomorrow at the IDA World Congress in Dubai, Bob Burk, NanoH2O’s chief scientific officer summed up the technology’s benefits: “Performance and economic modeling demonstrate the reduced water cost resulting from our SWRO can either result from energy savings because of operation at lower pressures or from increased water output from a plant running at increased flux and recovery.”