With one of the world’s largest desalination projects underway, Sydney has joined the ranks of other coastal cities in Australia to identify seawater desalination as a sustainable and rainfall-independent route to providing drinking water for its burgeoning metropolitan area. Recently, Dow Water Solutions, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Co., signed an agreement with contractor OTV/ (Blue Water) Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies of France to supply FILMTEC reverse osmosis (RO) membranes contributing to efficient desalination process at the new facility.
As part of the contract, Dow will deliver approximately 36,000 FILMTEC RO membranes to enable the process of converting 250,000 cu meters of seawater per day into potable water, with potential for expansion to 500,000 cu meters per day. The wind-powered Sydney desalination plant, which will provide potable water for 1.5 million Sydney-area residents, is scheduled to come on line in the Australian summer of 2009-2010.
“This latest collaboration with the John Holland group, one of Australia’s largest multi-discipline design and construction contractors and Veolia, a leader in desalination plant construction and operations, testifies to the growing interest in and support for desalination as a reliable and economically viable way to produce clean water in drought-prone, high-population areas,” said Ian Barbour, general manager, Dow Water Solutions. “For us at Dow, it’s a validation of our ongoing efforts to advance water treatment technologies that allow people to solve issues critical to their well-being and needs.”
The advanced membrane technology from Dow Water Solutions helps communities worldwide to broaden their water sourcing options, and FILMTEC membranes help desalination be an economically viable method of treating seawater to address global water shortages. FILMTEC RO membranes already play a key role in three of the world’s five largest desalination projects, including the plants in Tampa Bay, Fla.; Ashkelon, Israel; and Perth, Australia.
Source: Dow Chemical Company