Water is life – why are we not better at protecting and managing our precious water sources?
Global industrial growth is stressing our water resources with contamination. History as shown even with best regulation we cannot prevent contamination events from occurring. Watershed, rivers especially, are frequently surrounded by chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Even with the best safeguards in place, accidents and process failure can occur. This has been best demonstrated directly along the river Rhine where approximately 17% of the world’s chemical are produced. In more rural areas there are risks from pesticides. We should do our best to protect our water resources, but clearly the best protection is creating strong barriers against these threats with treatment.
Globally we see an increasing need for advanced water treatment.
Which technologies will be the most popular ones in 3-5 years from now?
We are seeing water scarcity increase at an astonishing rate. In most of the world all the ‘easy to treat water sources’ have already been used, and for additional supplies we need to use sea water and reuse domestic and industrial wastewater. Even in commonly thought water rich countries such as the UK and Germany, utilities are turning to water reuse and desalination. To treat these waters, we need advanced technologies which include advanced oxidation, higher performance membranes, and very specifically desalination. And we need to deliver them in a more sustainable fashion, lower energy, less chemicals and ultimately a lower carbon footprint.
Advanced water treatment technologies need to be sustainable and affordable. What kind of innovation and investment does it take to accelerate this change, i.e. develop sustainable and affordable technologies?
This is by far the biggest challenge of all. From the initial concept of the technology, it takes 7-12 years until full commercialization. The development has initial phase of fundamental academic research, then onto a technology company that can scale the concept and then finally onto a team of application engineers. Part of the problem has been that’s these phases occur in separated compartments. As a result, one can go through the development process for many years only to find there are serious limitations related to the application engineering. Involving all parties together from the start would greatly improve the chances of success and accelerate the process.
How are you celebrating World Water Day?
When I was only 8 years old, I knew I wanted to have a future with water. And since then, it has been my life’s passion. So, every day is World Water Day for me, and I celebrate about bringing forth change to the industry.
