GE announced at Singapore International Water Week 2012 that it will supply PUB, Singapore’s national water agency, with its advanced membrane bioreactor (MBR) wastewater treatment technology for an expansion of PUB’s Changi Water Reclamation Plant. GE will supply its ZeeWeed technology to the engineering, procurement and construction company UES Holdings Pte Ltd. (UESH) for the Changi upgrade.
The Singapore-based Changi Water Reclamation Plant was first constructed in 2007 to initially treat 800,000 cu meters per day. Once operational, the expanded plant will be able to handle a maximum wastewater flow of about 860,000 cu meters per day.
Under the contract with UESH, GE will supply the Changi Water Reclamation Plant with MBR technology and equipment featuring ZeeWeed 500 reinforced, hollow-fiber membranes, which have more than two decades of wastewater treatment and water reuse experience. GE also will provide cassettes, engineering design and commissioning support.
“Using GE’s advanced ZeeWeed MBR technology, the expanded Changi Water Reclamation Plant will provide superior effluent quality for both direct discharge to the environment or as feed water to Singapore’s NEWater program,” Johnson Tang, managing director, UESH.
As part of Singapore’s master plan for water sustainability over the next 100 years, the Changi Water Reclamation Plant is at the heart of Singapore’s Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS), a superhighway for collecting used water. The conceptual plan for the DTSS consists of two large deep tunnels that span the island conveying wastewater to two centralized wastewater treatment facilities. Phase 1 of the DTSS system was completed in 2008 and conveys wastewater from north and east Singapore to the Changi Water Reclamation Plant. It comprises a 48-kilometer-long deep-tunnel sewer running from Kranji to Changi, a centralized water reclamation plant at Changi, two 5-kilometer-long deep-sea outfall pipes and 60 kilometers of link sewer.
The treated used water from the Changi Water Reclamation Plant will then be discharged into the sea through deep-sea outfall pipes or channeled to the Changi NEWater factory on the rooftop of the reclamation plant where it is further purified through advanced membrane technologies into NEWater, Singapore’s own brand of reclaimed water.
ZeeWeed 500 technology is an advanced filtration technology that separates particles, bacteria and viruses from water or wastewater. Nearly 1,000 plants worldwide use this technology to produce superior quality drinking water and to meet or exceed stringent wastewater treatment and water reuse standards.
Combined with the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant, the expanded Changi Water Reclamation Plant will be GE’s second MBR plant for Singapore’s PUB. Counting drinking water treatment and wastewater treatment, the Changi Water Reclamation Plant expansion will be GE’s fifth ultrafiltration/microfiltration membrane project with Singapore’s PUB. GE will ship the equipment to Singapore in the second and third quarter of 2013, and the expanded Changi Water Reclamation Plant is expected to be operational during the third or fourth quarter of 2013.
“PUB is one of the most influential public water agencies in the world and is known as an innovator that stays on the cutting edge of technology. With today’s announcement, GE’s ZeeWeed technology will be in two of Singapore’s water reclamation plants,” said Jeff Connelly, vice president, engineered systems—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. “MBR systems are considered the best available technology for virtually all wastewater treatment applications and GE’s ZeeWeed MBR systems are the most widely used, reinforced, hollow-fiber ultrafiltration technologies available today.”
Source: GE
