Barcelona is situated in a water stressed and densely populated region so Aigües de Barcelona, the public-private company responsible for managing the water cycle in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, has identified the direct nanofiltration (dNF) membranes from NX Filtration as an innovative technology that can significantly simplify the treatment of their surface waters. These surface waters have posed challenges due to their variability in quality, mainly due to seasonal impacts. The pilot will target the reduction of processing steps, reduced energy and chemicals consumption and the problem of limited space.
As such, Aigües de Barcelona aims for more production of drinking water with less resources through achieving better recoveries with a smaller footprint than the current conventional technologies used.
Eva León González, innovation, investigation and technology manager at Aigües de Barcelona, said: “Compared to conventional water treatment technologies, direct nanofiltration could provide high quality water whilst reducing the number of filtration steps, thus simplifying the treatment of surface water and saving space. In addition, this technology also provides various advantages in terms of sustainability, as it reduces energy consumption and avoids the use of pre-treatment chemicals.”
The pilot campaign is based on NX Filtration’s full-scale Mexpert pilot system and is expected to run for approximately 15 months.
