Van Remmen reports promising results with pilot UV reactor for advanced oxidation
Van Remmen UV Techniek reports a considerable energy saving with the disinfection of water with a pilot UV reactor for advanced oxidation. This advanced oxidation is achieved by enhancing the UV-oxidation by injection of hydrogenperoxide.
The UV-specialized company ran three UVC-reactors with flows of 1 and 10m3/hr at a pretreatment plant of the Dutch drinking water supply company Dunea.
The development of the pilot reactor, in cooperation with KWR Watercycle research institute, is part of the European Union funded Demeau project for the removal of emerging pollutants from water and waste water.
Director Ton van Remmen has a personal drive to make UV filtration more sustainable.
Reduced flow rate
The preliminary results were reported by director Ton van Remmen in an interview that has been published in the most recent edition of the Demau project newsletter.
According to Van Remmen the standard approach when applying advanced oxidation UV disinfection, is to use a standard UV water disinfection unit that is currently available on the market.
Such a standard UV unit is adjusted for advanced oxidation by reducing the flow rate of the water inside the UV reactor by a factor 10–12 in order to generate the high UV dose that is required for the advanced oxidation, the director explains in the interview.
Designing of the optimum reactor for advanced oxidation.
Back to the drawing board
"In theory, this is correct but by reducing the flow rate, the velocity in the UV reactor and the flow pattern of the water is lost. This gave us the idea to bring the UV reactor back to the drawing board and to make specific improvements for the conditions of advanced oxidation", says Van Remmen.
In cooperation with KWR Watercycle Research Institute, Van Remmen developed a completely new reactor which is much better suited for the requirements of advanced oxidation. It is a combination of low pressure UV-lamps and hydrogenperoxide.
Van Remmen: "We’ve first tested this design on a small scale. Now we have been able to develop a full scale reactor within the Demeau project."
For the testing three different types of pretreated water were used: rapid filtration, rapid filtration with active carbon and rapid filtration with ozone.
Low cost of ownership
The results show that the new UV reactor uses 20–30 percent less energy than Van Remmen's already efficient standard low pressure UV systems for disinfection.
According to Van Remmen the results show that the new UV-technology is easy to operate and has a very low total cost of ownership.
Read the full interview: Demeau final newsletter 2015.
More information
Van Remmen
Wijhe, the Netherlands
+31 570 521 890
www.vanremmen.com