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Sustainability and digital transformation are emerging as significant trends in helping save energy and support water stability. They are also assisting in improving water quality for both production use and human consumption.
FREMONT, CA: Water plays a significant role in nearly all kinds of production. However, it is an afterthought for process manufacturing companies regardless of their continuous needs, clean flow, and the difficulty of managing water. Although playing a fundamental role across the economy, water is frequently managed in a fragmented manner, leaving national and regional growth strategies disconnected from insights into available and planned water resources. This leads to competition across consumers, mismanaged trade-offs, disruptions to operations, and under-investment in critical infrastructure.
Abiding by the Law
While there is instability in the management of water and wastewater, businesses are dealing with pressures from environmental laws and regulations. Government regulations are becoming stricter concerning the treatment of downstream water that people or animals might consume, which indicates that manufacturers either need to recycle or clean wastewater before it leaves an industry. Upstream water is also a concern for process use or cooling. Chemical processors must ensure that they have proper water quality for their processes. To address water quality control requirements, new approaches have emerged in the wastewater treatment segments.
Sustainability
A sustaining water flow strategy is one of the most required procedures that has become widespread recently. This includes conserving water and energy while adhering to regulations and dealing with water scarcity. Water recycling and sending water back upstream is a major method to increase the sustainability of water management. However, recycling is an expensive endeavour, and many companies might not be equipped with the tools to execute recycling methods.
Another technique is zero liquid discharge, where the producers remove the discharge of used water during the production process. However, this method has challenges and is mostly applicable to regions where there is a water shortage. Moreover, this method requires a lot of energy.
Several processes can help reduce the cost of cleaning the water. Some examples are biological processes that comprise membrane-aerated biofilm reactors (MBR), advanced oxidation processes (AOP), and advanced filter materials. Another method is chemical treatments that make water safe to drink, or at least safe to empty into streams, rivers, and lakes.
Digital Transformation
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, engineers and operators were essential onsite. However, the pandemic transitioned the world’s workforce to off-site or hybrid work conditions. Many companies faced the problem of employee turnover, which led to more digitization efforts. This resulted in industrial analytics, IoT, and automation emerging as more crucial factors for the water and wastewater industries. Engineers and operators had begun to embrace digital methods even before the pandemic to track trends in water processing.
However, unlike chemical plants and other businesses, the water industry has not been as swift to adopt digitalisation. Additionally, with the requirement of different parameters for various products, digital transformation needs to be aligned with companies that utilise them. Using analytics, automation, IoT, and self-analysation trends can help prevent water and wastewater issues. It also assists engineers and operators to make efficient decisions regarding ways to sustain water and reduce energy costs by adopting a more digital-friendly industry.
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