British firm Modern Water has signed an agreement with Bilfinger Deutsche Babcock Middle East to combine membrane and thermal desalination technologies.
Modern Water’s forward osmosis (FO) technology will be used in conjunction with Bilfinger’s multi-stage flash (MSF) desalination plants across the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Following an assessment, the companies are looking to deploy the joint MSF-FO solution to an operational desalination plant.
The aim of this pilot phase will be to “develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of forward osmosis to osmotically dilute and soften the recirculating brine of the desalination plant, allowing an increase in top brine temperature, which crucially reduces both the thermal and electrical energy consumption, whilst maintaining the same output”, the company said.
Although having installed its technology in Gibraltar and Oman for municipal water, FO revenues for Modern Water have declined recently compared to its monitoring division (read WWi story).
Simon Humphrey, CEO, Modern Water, said: “Our new strategy is to focus on industrial applications of our cutting-edge proprietary technologies, and this agreement with Bilfinger Deutsche Babcock Middle East is a significant endorsement of this new focus.”
Hakan Yapici, CEO, Bilfinger Deutsche Babcock Middle East FZE, said: “The installed fleet of MSF desalination plants is considerable and energy saving is becoming more and more a priority to our customers.”
Instead of going after municipal applications, other companies in the FO space, such as Oasis Water, are targeting difficult to treat waters such as from power plants (read WWi story).
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