Case Study: Fresh Water Recovery

Case Study: Fresh Water Recovery

Challenge

A global agrochemical company had developed a new product with great market potential. Unfortunately, its manufacturing process also produced extremely briny water – i.e. water with such high salinity that traditional desalination methods like electrolysis and reverse osmosis were rendered ineffective. As a result, the company was forced to store the waste product in large tanks, which was not a realistic or sustainable long-term solution. They needed to develop a cost effective fresh water recovery process from brine with high levels of chloride and at very high flow rates. The customer had already tried several pre-treatment and primary treatment options without success, and was looking for an innovative solution.

Critical Issues

Cross-Industry Insight           Technical Expertise             Process Design and Implementation

The Solution

Maven recommended that the client conduct an inquiry spanning professionals with experience in mining, energy, agriculture, and water treatment, among others, to generate ideas for how the company might develop a continuous process to recover fresh water from the brine stream. This led to several Telephone Consultations with relevant experts, including a consultant who had previously designed an innovative process for remediating fracking fluid in the natural gas industry. This conversation led to a Consulting Project during which the consultant helped them design and build the processing system on site.

“This was a major challenge. The authorities weren’t going to allow us to continue storing this material, so if we didn’t find a solution, we would’ve had to halt production. Turns out a completely different industry figured this out a long time ago, so all we needed was the right person to come help us.” – Director of Manufacturing Technology