CoRe Water: from WWTP to a sustainable water factory

On the first day of Aquatech 2017, Allied Waters, BLUE-tec, KWR and Royal HaskoningDHV signed a collaboration agreement for CoRe Water. The four parties believe it is high time that the current treatment process be fundamentally rethought. From now on, resource recovery should not be a side-line, but the central thrust of the production process. The objective is to recover a maximum amount of energy and resources, and to radically cut emissions of greenhouse gases and pharmaceutical residues.

Rethinking the system

CoRe Water stands for an innovative concept: ‘Concentration and Reuse’. ‘As a first step, we will concentrate municipal wastewater by a factor of 20 applying Forward Osmosis,’ says Lex van Dijk, director of BLUE-tec. The concentrated stream (1 part of the 20) is then biologically treated – first anaerobically, then aerobically. Danny Traksel, Business Developer at Royal HaskoningDHV explains: ‘In this way we can recover the maximum amount of energy and valuable components, while making the removal of pharmaceutical residues manageable. We also take huge steps towards limiting greenhouse gas emissions.’

Pure water for reuse

The remaining 19 parts of the original wastewater are released as pure water of demiwater quality, which is suitable for reuse in a number of applications. The key technique applied is Forward Osmosis, a relatively new and promising technology which is now beginning to break through in water practice. ‘More than ten years ago, we started researching Forward Osmosis on a small scale and, little by little, we made progress. Now, I look forward to making the leap to water practice with our partners,’ says Emile Cornelissen, senior scientist at KWR. Van Dijk concludes: ‘With CoRe Water we’re now truly making the step from WWTP to water factory!’

From left to right: Jos Boere (Allied Waters), Lex van Dijk (BLUE-tec), Esther Bosman (Royal HaskoningDHV) and Wim van Vierssen (KWR) signing the collaboration agreement for CoRe Water.