The annual award recognises initiatives that contribute to the management and sustainable use of Brazil’s water resources. Koch Membrane Systems was a key participant in the water reuse project. The award ceremony took place on 29 November 2012 at the Cultural Institution of the Brazilian Federal Savings Bank and was attended by Edson Giriboni, Secretary of Sanitation and Water Resources of the State of São Paulo. Aquapolo Ambiental is a water reuse project created by Foz do Brasil (Odebrecht Organization) and Sabesp, a Brazilian state-owned utility that provides water and sewage services for residential, commercial, and industrial use in the municipalities of the state of São Paulo. The Aquapolo project was initiated to address new government regulations to restrict industrial use of potable water in São Paulo and is the largest industrial water reuse project in the Southern Hemisphere. Aquapolo is designed for a peak capacity of 1,000 litres per second of reuse water and will supply the Capuava Petrochemical Complex of Mauá, located in São Paulo's ABC region, thereby conserving enough drinking water to continuously supply a population of 300,000 people. Koch Membrane Systems, Inc. provided PURON® membrane bioreactor (MBR) modules as well as MegaMagnum® reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, system design and controls, and after-market support and service for the Aquapolo project. “The Aquapolo Ambiental water reuse project is definitely a milestone in terms of water reuse initiatives in Brazil,” says KMS Regional Manager Sergio Ribeiro. “Investors and potential end users were just waiting for the plant to start producing and delivering constantly high quality process water to start looking for other projects using the same concept. The retrofit of existing wastewater treatment installations with membranes to produce high quality reuse water is now the name of our game.”
