June 25, 2002 -- NORIT will supply new membrane technology for the purification of drinking water for over half a million people in Minneapolis.
The multi million US dollar deal covers the supply of NORIT membrane technology. The agreement follows a successful implementation of the NORIT membrane technology in Clay Lane (London), Three Valleys Water Authority, in the UK (the largest potable water membrane ultrafiltration installation in Europe).
New US legislation for water treatment and other factors triggered the City of Minneapolis to invest in a complete renovation of its Columbia Heights water treatment plant, servicing (together with the Fridley plant) over half a million people on a daily basis (70 million gallon per day).
The Columbia Heights plant uses traditional purification methods such as chemicals and sand filters recently, but will replace these traditional techniques in 2004 using NORIT innovative membrane technology.
This technology is at high demand, because of the growing global need for fresh and reliable water. Cost-effective and reliable water treatment, such as membrane filtration, is therefore more and more important to water authorities.
The Columbia Heights water treatment facility will be the largest ultrafiltration plant in the United States and among the largest membrane filtration plants in the world.
The membrane technology takes out viruses and pathogenic organisms such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia from drinking water.
NORIT membrane technology removes bacteria, some of which can't be killed by using chlorine. The unique membrane technology can actually remove bacteria efficiently: the filtration of bacteria can be compared with a tennis ball trying to get through a regular home-used salad-washing sieve.
The applied technology is safe: a water source containing a million bacteria will have less than one after being filtered. The use of NORIT membrane technology will also reduce the use of chemicals in the purification process.
Cooperation with Ionics NORIT is cooperating closely with Ionics, the U.S.-based global separations technology company. In the US and Canada this cooperation is exclusive for municipal potable water installations over 10 million gallons per day.
In this Minneapolis project, NORIT is supplying the ultrafiltration technology and the X-Flow membranes to Ionics, who is supplying the complete membrane system to the City. NORIT N.V., the purification company.
Its corporate head office is based in Hengelo, The Netherlands. Annual sales amount up to 277 mm EUR in 2001. The company operates worldwide in over 140 countries, supplying purification solutions, equipment and engineering services to the food & beverage, water, chemical and pharmaceuticals markets.
For information about NORIT, please visit www.norit.info.
