Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies says that it is attracting more and more industries seeking to reconcile productivity and energy savings with a smaller environmental footprint. Since the start of 2012, Veolia Water’s technology subsidiary has signed a series of eight significant contracts with industry clients. The company now has more than 800 facilities in over 30 countries using HPD evaporation and crystallisation technology.
The industries have access to Veolia Water’s portfolio of 350 proprietary technological processes that are tailored to the new challenge they face of having to recycle their effluent and recover the material contained in their production waste-potash, phosphorus, etc.-for its reuse or as a revenue stream. In the mining sector in Spain, Veolia Water material recovery technology was chosen by Spanish potash miner and fertiliser manufacturer Iberpotash under a major contract. Based on HPD’s evaporation and crystallisation processes, the system will recover the salts and potash in the production waste from which it will produce up to 750,000 t/y of food processing and chemical salts, and 50,000 t/y of white potash. Entirely designed in a closed loop with construction slated for completion in 2014 by Veolia Water, the facility will continuously recirculate the condensate and effluent back into the production circuit eliminating all final liquid residue and reducing the environmental footprint.
In Canada, where one of the largest oil sands prodcuers in northern Alberta has been using the HPD evaporation technology since 2010 to treat the feed water for its production process that yields 40,000 bbl/d. In 2012, the producer contracted Veolia Water for a similar sized project in the same region. The system uses a Veolia Water proprietary process to treat the production water in situ while recovering 20,500 m3/d of this treated water to feed the site’s boilers.