Drupps at Aquatech Amsterdam
Jan Svärd (Easy Mining), Jonas Wamstad (Drupps), Jelle Vedder (Bartels & Vedder), Simon Pitts (DuPont), and Carles Crespo Bachero (Isle Utilities) at a discussion panel at Aquatech Amsterdam 2023 on “How innovation fuels stewardship activities” (Photo: Isle Utilities)
For all of you who missed it, Aquatech Amsterdam happened last week. Being one of the major water events of the calendar, this is where you find the trends in water. Most people related to European water and water technology development seemed to be there.
Drupps were invited to speak about how innovation fuels water stewardship activities, and about how industrial airborne wastewater is a major but untapped water potential, not least for its energy content.
Trying to cut CO₂ emission by steering away from fossil fuels, the whole world seems obsessed with finding new sustainable energy sources, or recycle old energy. Being packed with energy, airborne wastewater is a good place to start. Many industries didn't see that coming. But it was only until Drupps made recycling of it profitable that its value became apparent.
In this perfect storm of 1) water scarcity caused by global warming, 2) the need to cut CO₂ emission, and 3) spiralling energy prices due to the Ukraine war, recycling of energy-loaded airborne water just makes a lot of good economic sense. If you have the technology.
On the water recycling side at Aquatech, there was not much talk of airborne wastewater, only liquid wastewater. I guess that makes Drupps a first-mover. On that side however, the major topic was PFAS, for obvious reasons — a lot of heavy regulation is coming down, in both the US and EU, lowering thresholds on what is regarded as 'safe' water. It seems the more we look, the more PFAS we find, after decades of unhindered pollution. Money is now pouring in into this field.
The PFAS challenge has two angles — The first is to know exactly how much PFAS there is. Quick and reliable measuring techniques are still lacking, but development is going fast.
The second is what to do with it. Active carbon has been the go-to method for removal so far, but this handling is costly and cumbersome. On top of this, there are concerns about where the residual molecules are flying off to, once destroyed. As of now, in many places there is a moratorium on incinerating PFAS-loaded active carbon, to await new technology. It struck me how similar this is to how we treat used nuclear fuel in Sweden, where we still have no longterm plan to dispose of it after 50 years of use.
Other hot topics from Aquatech were monitoring and leak detection of pipe distribution systems. On average, somewhere between 30-40 percent of produced water is estimated to be lost on the way to consumers in the EU. It makes a lot of sense to try to plug these leaks, instead of building ever-larger water production plants.
To sum things up, gone are the days when the industry regarded water as a plentyful and free commodity among others. Instead, water is quickly becoming regarded as a strategic resource. It seems Drupps’ model for recovering airborne wastewater, and its energy, may be at the right place at the right time.