From 26-29 September the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam will host the 21st edition of the Aquatech exhibition, the world’s leading trade exhibition for process, drinking and wastewater in the world. Based on the successful participation at the previous Aquatech in 2004 Norit uses this important platform to highlight the number of key technologies Norit has developed to coop with the needs for safe, high quality drinking water, process water and wastewater.

The Aquatech Amsterdam 2006 has turned into an important place to meet water professionals from all over the world who wish to keep abreast of all the latest developments in the water market. Norit ‘leading in purification’ will exhibit prominently in the middle of the Water Treatment sector, booth nr. 01.426. The Aquatech organization has set-up a new clear segmentation on the exhibition floor ensuring that all visitors can easily track down the areas of most interest. New are the AquaStages, seminars free of charge, to inform the visitors about the latest trends and developments in the industry.

Water availability
Each year, the world population is growing by about 90 million to about 8.5 billion by 2025. Nearly 75 % of the world’s fresh water is locked into glaciers and icecaps, with virtually all the rest underground. A very small percentage of the world’s total water, about 0,01 % is easily available for human use. Even this tiny amount would be sufficient to meet all the world needs if it were distributed evenly.
However, the world is divided into water ‘have’ and ‘have not’ areas. For example in the Middle East, northern Asia, north western Mexico, most of Africa, much of the western United States, parts of Chile and Argentina and nearly all of Australia, people need more water than can be supplied. Unfortunately, the availability of water is dropping and a growing number of people around the world are living with water constraints

Clean drinking water
Norit is continuously striving efforts to develop technologies to purify water coming from different sources, like borehole, surface or river water, municipal treated drinking water or reuse of wastewater. During this year’s exhibition special attention will be paid to smallscale water purification in smaller villages and settlements with the Norit PERFECTOR-E. The PERFECTOR-E has been developed in cooperation with PWN Waterleidingbedrijf Noord-Holland just after the first devastating images of the tsunami in south East Asia became available. This small size and skid mounted technology is ensuring civilians safe drinking water from polluted surface water. The technology is designed in such a way that local people can operate and maintain the system and it can be easily transported. Although developed after a natural disaster took place in SE Asia, Norit is supplying a growing number of systems to aid providers as well as local townships and communities who want to become independent for the supply of drinking water. Norit as one of the oldest manufacturer of activated carbon is already a proven supplier of different types of Activated Carbon for the treatment of potable water, process and wastewater for many years. Norit activated carbon and ultra filtration membranes are combined by Filtrix into a universal POU cartridge filter supplying high quality and safe water all over the world under virtual every circumstance. The revolutionary concept of helically wound membranes allows for a fully automated manufacturing process, guaranteeing our business partners competitive pricing around the world.
Some of the largest potable water plants in Europe and the USA are equipped with Norit’s high performance SXL ultrafiltration membranes to provide bacteria and virus free water.
As a large number of countries in the world are literally surrounded by sea this could become a very important source of raw water. The SEAGUARD ultrafiltration membranes of X-Flow are specially designed as pre-treatment to seawater reverse osmosis membrane technology. The recent successes achieved in Dubai (184.000 m³/day) and Turkey (20.000 m³/day) proves that our technology combines competitive costing and improved water quality.

Process water
All over the world industries such as steel mills, power plants, paper mills and petrochemical facilities use Norit membranes and activated carbon to purify process water for direct use or as boiler feed water. Next to treating raw, drinking and wastewater Norit will exhibit solutions to produce ultra pure water for infusions and other pharmaceutical applications. Südmo has developed a modular micro filtration system based on X-Flow’s membranes for treatment of mineral water and beverages against competitive cost in comparison to traditional cartridge filter systems. Together with the valve and valve manifolds, turnkey solutions are provided to convert well water into aseptic bottled beverages.

Wastewater
Norit’s XIGA UF membranes are used in the world’s largest municipal wastewater reuse plant as pre-treatment to RO. Every day this plant recycles 380.000 m³ water in Kuwait, which is mainly used for irrigation purposes.
The Membrane BioReactor (MBR) technology provides a number of environmental benefits. The growing demand for clean and safe water is not only pushing users to limit the use of fresh water, but also to reuse wastewater. During the Aquatech a number of references will be presented based on the proven Airlift MBR technology both in municipal and industrial applications. The unique and compact MBR technology, often in combination with activated carbon, enables customers to turn wastewater into a very valuable stream of
process water.