Water Sector

Limit for cold extraction from drinking water can be raised

Waternet applies aquathermia to recover cold from drinking water. With a view to the drinking water quality, the water utility wanted to know what the upper temperature limit was for this to be done safely. Research conducted within the TKI context produced the answer. ‘We can raise the limit from 15 to 18 degrees Celsius,’ says Jan Peter van der Hoek of Waternet. ‘This represents a huge gain.’

Even before the TKI ‘Thermal energy from drinking water’ project got under way, Waternet had implemented this innovation at full-scale in practice. One of the Amsterdam water utility’s large drinking water transport mains runs along the site of the Sanquin blood bank in our capital. By deploying a heat exchanger in a branch of this main, the cold from the clean water is extracted and then used to cool the blood-plasma products made by Sanquin. A smart solution and sustainable alternative to the use of energy-guzzling refrigerators. During the project, the application won an innovation prize at the International Water Association’s congress in Tokyo in 2018. ‘The heat exchanger is an existing technology, which is per se no innovation,’ says Van der Hoek, who, besides being Chief Innovation Officer at Waternet, is also Professor of Drinking Water Engineering at TU Delft. ‘This is much more about what impact the cold extraction has on the water quality.’

Lab set-up in Amsterdam at Waternet’s Technological Laboratory.

Read the full impact story. (In Dutch)

  • TKI Water Technology
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