Activated carbon purifies potable water in Venice

September 26, 2007 -- CECA, a subsidiary of the ARKEMA Group, has been working jointly with experts from VESTA since 2003 to determine the right solution using activated carbon to purify the water of the City of Venice and offer its citizens high quality water.

A solution based on activated carbon
Used as an adsorbent, activated carbon generally helps eliminate odors, tastes and micropollutants from raw water. In order to meet VESTA's requirements, CECA, a subsidiary of the ARKEMA Group, initially installed a pilot plant to determine the most effective activated carbon type.

ACTICARBONE® NCL activated carbon was finally selected for its features and the specific proprieties of the water to be treated. 600m³ of this activated carbon grade were supplied by CECA ITALIANA's Legnago plant near Verona.

Environmental friendly "regeneration"
In line with its sustainable development policy, VESTA opted for the activated carbon regeneration process in order to minimize the environmental impact. No need to take the end-of-life product to a landfill: using a shuttle system (foodgrade tankers), the spent activated carbon is shipped by CECA back to its Legnago facility, the largest of its kind in Southern Europe, before being reactivated and dispatched to the VESTA site.

"We all know the importance of the quality of water to Venice", explains Guido Donà, Managing Diractor of Ceca Italiana, "and this project highlights the true added value which CECA can bring to its customers: upstream work to determine the best and most cost-effective technical solution, the supply of high performance products, and post-installation services to maximize lifetime".

CECA, a subsidiary of the ARKEMA Group, is a world player in Specialty Chemicals. CECA operates an extensive network of industrial facilities in Europe, together with two research centers (GRL and CRRA) dedicated to Customer innovation.

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