Bavaria innovates process-water reuse with KWR’s help

On 23 March 2016 Bavaria put a new screw conveyor into operation. The screw conveyor makes it possible to return treated process water from the brewery back into the immediate environment, so that the local farmers can make use of it. The conveyor was built thanks to Rijkswaterstaat, the Province of North Brabant, the municipality of Laarbeek, the Aa and Maas Water Board and ZLTO (Southern Agriculture and Horticulture Organization), and is part of the Boer Bier Water project. Associated with this initiative is the research conducted by KWR and Bavaria, within the TKI Water Technology programme, on reverse drainage (subirrigation) at the Van Dijk family’s farm. The goal of the research is to clarify the impact of the reuse of process water on crops and groundwater.

Bavaria produces a huge amount of treated process water every year from its brewery operations. The screw conveyor raises the water to a certain level, from where, thanks to the power produced by the height differential, it is transported into the immediate environment. One the one hand the water is returned subsurface to the farmers’ land via a pipe network; a process known as ‘reverse drainage’. On the other hand, it is conveyed to the canal, so that others can make use of the extra water. The ultimate objective is to keep the water in the immediate environment.