DID YOU KNOW THAT….
the United Nations has declared access to clean water to be a human right?
71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water?
just 0,3% of the world’s water is available as drinking water?
70% of the human body is water?
Plants need water to grow. Animals drink water, and water is essential to human life too! Among other things, it regulates our blood circulation and body temperature. But water is a scarce, unevenly distributed resource.
Whilst, in industrialized nations, constant access to clean running water is a given, people in third world countries walk for hours to the only water source in order to meet their daily needs. Whilst, in some regions of the globe, the soil dries out, other countries have to battle with floods. All this shows how important access to clean water is for our society!
How does Brenntag contribute to clean water?
Companies that treat water in order to ensure a safe and reliable supply make a vital contribution worldwide. Brenntag, too, is there to assist wherever clean, pure water is essential!
The Brenntag Water Treatment team provides products and solutions for drinking water treatment, municipal and industrial purification plants, and for process water and cooling water treatment systems in industrial operations. The tasks and challenges that need to be addressed here are wide-ranging. They include:
Odour formation
We are all familiar with unpleasant odours in drains and sewers. Among other things, Brenntag provides various metallic salt mixtures and the innovative product Clorious2® for eliminating odours.
Solids-liquid separation
Separating solids in suspension in the water by means of flotation, filtration and sedimentation* is central to industrial and municipal wastewater treatment. Brenntag provides various metallic salts and flocculants to support these physico-chemical processes – including thickening and dewatering of the sludge produced in wastewater treatment.
Foam formation
Unwanted foam can form both in industrial production processes and in wastewater treatment. Brenntag offers defoamers and deaerators that combat or prevent this build-up of foam.
Scale inhibition
Unwanted scale and deposits can form both in cooling water and in other industrial process water circuits. Scale inhibitors influence and prevent the build-up of scale by disrupting crystal growth, inhibiting, chelating and dispersing.
Cooling water and boiler water treatment
In the case of cooling and boiler water, the top priority is to inhibit scale and corrosion; in cooling water, controlling microbiological activity is also paramount. Our extensive product portfolio covers the full range of water treatment solutions in open and closed cooling systems.
Dissolved contaminants
Complexed contaminants also have to be removed during water treatment. For this, Brenntag offers a broad range of specialty products that can be used across a wide pH spectrum.
Our water treatment experts work closely together with customers. They analyze the specific task in hand, as they need to understand the on-site processes in order to build a 360-degree view of the technical plant and equipment available on the customer’s premises. In water chemistry, for example, there are various different product groups and therefore hundreds of products. Our experts need to find out which products suit the customer’s individual needs and requirements, how they might be combined with other products and how they can be used with the customer’s on-site technology. The entire Brenntag team in charge of water treatment is made up of specialists with specific expertise and years of experience in this field.
“Besides a broad portfolio of water treatment products, Brenntag also offers application- and process engineering-related advice. We help customers make optimum use of their plant and equipment and advise them on how to use products as efficiently as possible. The aim in working together with our customers is clean water in combination with an effective use of the product tailored to their specific requirements. Our rule is to ensure successful and sustainable water treatment,” says Uwe Webers, Director Water Treatment, EMEA.
* Flotation is a physico-chemical separation technique for fine particles that uses differences in the particles’ wettability. It takes place in a liquid, often water, and is enabled by injecting gas, often air.
Filtration is a technique used to separate or purify substances, usually a suspension or an aerosol. Filtration is one of the mechanical separation techniques based solely on physical properties.
Sedimentation is the process whereby particles from liquids or gases are deposited under the force of gravity or a centrifugal force. The layer of suspended solids that forms is called sediment.| Source: Wikipedia
Clean water is something many of us take for granted, whether it be from the tap, bottled as mineral water in the supermarket, in the swimming pool or at the car wash. But clean water is by no means a given. What are the particular challenges in water treatment?
UWE Water is an extremely important resource, in my opinion the most important of all, for without water there would be no life! The biggest challenge over the coming years will be to ensure the quantities of water required to cope with the advance of global industrialization and strong population growth. This can only work if further water treatment measures can be deployed to make our existing water available as drinking water. Water reuse also plays a decisive role. In addition, systematic wastewater treatment helps to protect groundwater and surface water, which serve as a drinking water reservoir.
What are Brenntag Water Treatment’s main areas of business and how does Brenntag contribute to clean water?
UWE Basically, we are active in all drinking water, wastewater and process water treatment applications. Proven and innovative products in combination with an experienced team enable us to offer our customers attractive solutions. Our customers also benefit from the fact that we are present throughout Europe; this is so that we are able to offer existing and potential customers that operate transnationally within Europe standardized concepts. One key advantage for Brenntag as a distributor in this large and important sector is that we offer solutions spanning multiple product groups and can therefore continuously adapt our portfolio in line with market requirements.
Brenntag sells a product called Clorious2®. What sort of product is it, where is it used and what are the benefits?
UWE Clorious2® is a safe, versatile and highly efficient disinfectant manufactured and marketed by Brenntag. Whereas conventionally manufactured chlorine dioxide cannot be stored or transported and has to be produced on the customer’s site, Clorious2® is ready to use and always transportable.
New applications for this broadband product are emerging almost every day. Several years ago, for example, we started marketing this product solely to combat microorganisms that cause unpleasant odours in sewers. To name just a few examples, we now use the products in the Clorious2® range for various sophisticated and sometimes innovative applications in the automotive and food industries and in disinfecting drinking water for human and animal use. Clorious2® has also been shown to be an ideal means of effectively combating legionella bacteria. Illnesses caused by legionella bacteria pose an increasing risk to humans. In this case too, Brenntag can make a significant contribution to society.
UWE WEBERS
DIRECTOR WATER TREATMENT, EMEA
