On 17 December 2009, at a festive meeting in Rotterdam that saw out a successful 2009, Evides Industriewater announced the start of the construction of a demo plant (15m3/h) in China. DWS (Dow Water Solutions) will build this plant in China with a subsidy from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. This demo plant, which will produce demineralised water from wastewater effluent, will be used at a number of chemical companies in the dry north of China. In order to supervise these activities, Evides will appoint one or more local representatives in China. The organisation and demo plant are expected to go live in the second quarter of 2010.
Chemical plants will be built on a large scale in the north of China (the provinces of Ningxa, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and Shandong) in the next few years. These plants will for the greater part produce chemicals on the basis of pit coal processing. These regions are known for their droughts and the limited availability of water. Reusing water (e.g. from the effluent of wastewater treatment plants) is not an option in this case, it is a must. NethWater and Evides have very good experiences with the reuse of wastewater for the production of industrial water. Evides already uses effluent from the municipality of Terneuzen for the production of demineralised water for Dow. Furthermore, the quality of this effluent will improve in the second quarter of 2010 once the MBR (Membrane Bioreactor) at the De Drie Ambachten sewage purification plant in Terneuzen is finished. For Evides Industriewater, the reuse of effluent is a key activity anyway: in January 2010, Evides will start a four-year pilot study at the Harnaschpolder sewage purification plant to upgrade effluent to irrigation water for Westland.
All this experience will come in handy during the development of reuse projects in China. In order to learn more about the local situation and to be able to test the technology in different locations, NethWater has decided to set up a mobile demo plant. DWS will build this plant in China. Its scale (15m3/h) is more than enough to be able to use the results for the upgrade to full-scale. The first demo location lies in the north of the province of Shaanxi.
Evides is also in the process of identifying full-scale projects as a follow-up to the demo activities.
Evides organisation in China
In order to be able to supervise the activities in China, Evides will soon appoint one or more local representatives, who will look after our interests from a so-called Rep Office and who will supervise the construction of the demo plant. We will introduce these water experts to our organisation, our working processes and plants during a series of training sessions at a number of Evides Industriewater plants in the Netherlands. Once back in China, these process engineers will be given permanent points of contact at Evides so as to ensure a smooth start in China (front office vs. back office). We will keep you updated on the progress in China.