Semiotic Labs wins WIS Award 2020 with SAM4 innovation
Semiotic Labs has won the overall WIS Award 2020 with its smart asset management system SAM4 for electrical pumps, engines and valves. The public award went to the Circleaner by Noria that removes plastic soup from surface water.
The grand finale for the best Dutch innovative water technologies of 2020, organised by Water Alliance, was streamed on 18 December from a studio in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands.
Many new solutions
At the grand finale event, seven innovations competed for the prestigious award for best innovative Dutch water technology. The seven contenders ranged from an aeration system with nano bubbles (Royal Brinkman), tubular forward osmosis for high solid-loaded industry water (Berghof), a flame-retardant recovered from waste water (Susphos), ozonisation with laser technology (O3 systems), to a mobile UF-filtration unit for drinking water (Jotem).
The jury, chaired by professor Cees Buisman of Wetsus, European centre of excellence for sustainable water technology, said to be surprised that year after year the Water Innovation Solutions (WIS) challenges bring forward so many new Dutch innovations. ‘The water sector has to solve huge global problems’, said Buisman when he announced the overall winner, ‘It was good to see that again seven interesting Dutch water technology companies with such high quality solutions have been nominated.’
Less pump-down time
The overall winner Semiotic Labs introduced the SAM4 assessment unit for preventive maintenance. The unit processes current and voltage data, using machine learning to analyse the waveforms. This enables users to trace 90 percent of all upcoming failures in pumps and electrical engines up to five months ahead.
‘In many places around the world the water infrastructure is aging’, said Simon Jagers of Semiotic Labs in his online contribution. ‘Pipes and pumps are failing to an extend that European and American sector organisations sound the alarm.’
According to Jagers there is no quick fix but the global water sector has the possibility to significantly reduce the pump-down time today. ‘Every year a million pumps fail but we do not know which ones. Knowing in advance which pumps will fail and when will have a great impact. That is exactly what our SAM4 unit offers. It signals failure in advance so maintenance engineers can schedule repairs or replacements well before the actual failure.'
Removal of plastic soup
The winner of the public award was Noria with its Circleaner that removes plastic waste from rivers. The floating collector consists of a hollow shaft with five blades that scoop through the water in the upper metre of the water column. A waterwheel converts the flow of the water – either current or river flow - to the rotational motion of the scoop.
Founder Rinze de Vries of Noria highlighted the abilities of the energy efficient and fish friendly floating collector. ‘The Circleaner has already been tested at four locations in the Netherlands. Now our system is ready to be installed all over the world.’
Both winners were awarded an international marketing support voucher.
