Industrial Water Management

The water challenge for industry

Industry faces many challenges related to water, including a growing risk of water shortages and increased legislative pressures on water quality at discharge. While water re-use can help solve some of these issues, the reuse of water can have unintended impacts in industrial processes through the build of contaminants in systems. Examples of this include reduction in performance, corrosion, or biofilm formation. To address these challenges, a case by case understanding of the many factors at play is required.

A multifaceted approach

RISE has the unique opportunity to combine a broad range of expertise in industrial water management with leading process experts in many industrial sectors such as food, chemicals, manufacturing, pulp, paper and mining. Our approach is focused on understanding what limits water reuse for an industrial site and then working to remove those limitations. Our experts can work with industrial sites to:

• Audit water use and identify water reuse opportunities both within an industrial site and between sites in industrial parks.
• Identify water contaminants and their impact to an industrial site, or process, if they are recycled with water.
• Evaluate techniques to limit contaminant buildup, such as substitution of chemicals causing contamination or the use of water treatment technologies in the process.
• Identify microbiological impacts and techniques to minimise biological impact on processes.
• Evaluate water treatment technologies for water discharged from an industrial site.
• Find opportunities to recover resources from the water, for example biogas production or saleable chemical products.

RISE can demonstrate solutions at lab and pilot scale, perform techno-economical evaluation and support industry with implementation of solutions.