FEATURE
A new trend in mobile
water-treatment
plant hire
Plant breakdowns can be solved by hiring a mobile water-treatment unit.
However, mains water is not always the same and a change of water supply at
an industrial water treatment plant, from river to borehole, or vice versa, can be
devastating. According to Mark Dyson of Aquamove, one solution is a mobile
fleet including a range of pretreatment processes.
When Aquamove Veolia Water Solutions &
Technologies brand for mobile water systems
set up its mobile water-treatment plant facil-
ity in the UK its was to provide temporary
systems for plant breakdowns, planned main-
tenance and commissioning. It was ultimately
for temporary requirements, and that is still
the main application, but over recent years a
new trend has been developing long-term
plant rentals.
Initially, the mobile fleet was equipped
with just reverse osmosis (RO) and ion-
exchange demineralisation systems to cover
mechanical breakdown of on-site systems,
and these are still the two most widely used
packages. Deionisation trailers typically
provide two streams of cation, anion and
mixed-bed ion-exchange, which are capable
of producing 100 m3/h of 0.1 S/cm high-
purity water.
When the ion-exchange resins are exhaust-
ed, the complete trailer is returned to the
central regeneration facility, which means zero
discharge on-site and no problems associ-
ated with handling or disposing of regenerant
chemicals. Since the plant footprint is bigger
than ion-exchange, containerised RO units are
generally capable of producing up to 25 m3/h
of permeate with a conductivity typically less
than 20 S/cm in a single pass. If higher qual-
ity treated water is needed, two units can be
configured in series as twin pass giving per-
meate of less than 5 S/cm.
No standby capacity
Financial constraints often mean that there
is no standby capacity in the on-site water
treatment plant, so when a vessel fails or
there is a fire in the plant room, production
is at risk. When an emergency like this does
occur the simplest solution to the problem
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Membrane Technology
is to hire a trailer-mounted mobile water-
treatment system whilst repairs are carried
out. However, the introduction of common
carriage and extended water supply networks
has brought a different kind of problem.
Mains water, unlike gas, oil and electricity, is
not always the same: seasonal algal growth on
a reservoir can increase the organic content
causing rapid fouling of ion-exchange resins
and RO membranes.
If the raw-water quality
changes, the mobile plant
can be easily reconfigured.
No wonder that more and
more temporary systems are
becoming permanent.
Another possibility is that the water supplier
may have to change the source of the water
supply from river to borehole, or vice versa,
with a sudden and dramatic change in total dis-
solved solids. The water still meets the require-
ments set for drinking water, but the effect
on an industrial water-treatment plant can be
devastating. For instance, ion-exchange plants
designed for thin, upland water may have insuf-
ficient capacity to treat thicker borehole water,
whilst those designed for hard, borehole water
may suffer from fouling by higher concentra-
tions of natural organic matter in supplies
derived from moorland reservoirs.
To meet this demand, the mobile fleet was
expanded to include a range of pretreatment
processes, including coagulation and floc-
culation, clarification, filtration, activated
carbon adsorption and softening all in
modular configurations to provide the right
process route to treat any raw water quality to
achieve any treated water quality and quantity
required.
Expanding production
Whilst many of the applications for mobile
units are emergencies, this is not always the
case.
An unexpectedly full order book often cre-
ates an urgent need to expand production
quickly, and a mobile plant can provide the
additional treated water that is needed whilst a
permanent plant is being installed. Sometimes,
companies need to carry out production tri-
als, and may want to look at the effects of
water quality on their production processes.
Temporary deionisation plants provide a cost-
effective means of finding out if it is worth-
while making a substantial capital investment
in permanent plant.
Of course, many mobile customers hire tem-
porary plants to provide treated water during
a planned maintenance shutdown of the water
treatment plant and similar non-emergency
situations. Over the last year the service has
provided, among many others, a filtration and
RO plant to treat an unexpectedly high volume
of landfill leachate resulting from high rainfall;
a RO system to upgrade a poorly performing
river-water treatment plant; and a RO and
deionisation plant to feed a power and steam
utilities plant at a major chemicals complex
during a planned outage.
But, perhaps surprisingly, an increasing
number of customers are making a case for
long-term hire. This may be because the capital
investment in a permanent plant would not
pay back within the lifetime of the project a
nuclear power station decommissioning project
and limited life power station refurbishment are
real examples where this approach has proved
to be cost-effective.
The temporary plant approach also provides
other advantages. The quality of the treated
water is guaranteed and the treatment pro-
August 2014

cess is tailored to meet current water quality
needs, whether that is for de-alkalised water
for soft drinks manufacturing, purified water
for pharmaceuticals, demineralised water for
high-pressure boilers or even ultrapure water
for semiconductor manufacturing. If the treated
water quality needs to be upgraded, it is an easy
matter to change the trailer for one using
a more advanced treatment process.
Case study:
waste plant
In this example, energy from a waste plant,
which incinerates 225 000 tonnes per year
of non-recyclable domestic waste, produces
400C superheated steam in a 46-bar water
tube boiler. This steam drives a turbine
that generates electricity for export to the
National Grid.
Make-up water for the boiler is produced
by an on-site ion-exchange demineralisation
plant that consists of cation exchanger, anion
exchanger and mixed-bed polishing. However,
this was failing to meet the 20-g/l silica water
quality requirement.
The initial solution to this problem was to
provide three mobile, temporary mixed-bed
polishers to treat the water from the demin-
eralisation plant mixed beds and reduce the
silica to less than 10 g/l. Continuous quality
monitoring of the treated water for conductiv-
ity and silica was also provided. The ionic load
on the mobile units was very low and exhaus-
tion infrequent. They were not regenerated
on-site, but returned to the central regenera-
tion station and exchanged for a regenerated
unit. This temporary approach proved to be
so reliable and cost-effective that it was used
for an extended period.
The long-term rental of mobile water-treat-
ment systems ensures that the plant is avail-
able immediately, has no associated capital
cost and does not require any housing all of
the equipment is installed in a standard 12-m
(40-ft) trailer which is insulated and supplied
with heating and lighting, so that the internal
environment is just like most plant rooms.
These trailers are also kitted out with appro-
priate safety equipment and complete with
all necessary instrumentation and controls.
They can be positioned to make the best use
of available space and connected to existing
pipework using flexible hoses.
In terms of process technology, the range is
almost unlimited. Mobile units are complete-
ly modular, so any configuration of processes
can be combined to make up a complete
system to suit any application, which means
that water from a borehole, river or reservoir
August 2014
can be handled as easily as that taken from
the mains.
A typical temporary or mobile plant might
consist of pretreatment systems in trailers,
using multi-media filtration, organic scaveng-
ing or granular activated carbon adsorption;
RO in a second trailer and even mixed-bed
ion-exchange polishing, carried out by a third.
Temporary tanks and pumps also can be pro-
vided in trailers together with all interconnect-
ing flexible hoses, water meters and fittings,
and, of course, mobile generators to make the
system completely stand-alone.
Membrane-based
degassing process
The latest addition to the range is Remox (see
Membrane Technology February 2014, page 5).
This membrane-based degassing process
removes carbon dioxide and oxygen from water.
Dissolved CO2 reduces the efficiency of ion-
exchange and continuous electro-deionisation
processes. Membrane degassing works by
passing the water across a gas-permeable mem-
brane, on the other side of which is a flow of
atmospheric air. CO2 transfers across the mem-
brane from the gas-rich water to the CO2-lean
inert gas. The process reduces dissolved CO2
to less than 0.3 mg/l. Replacing the air with
an inert gas either nitrogen or water vapour
generated under vacuum enables dissolved
oxygen to be removed.
Oxygen causes corrosion in boiler systems
so it has to be removed from boiler feed-water
by adding oxygen scavenging chemicals such
as sulphite or carbohydrazide. Remox removes
dissolved oxygen to less than 0.01 mg/l, dra-
matically reducing the consumption of oxygen
scavengers.
Dissolved oxygen in semiconductor rinse
water can result in wafer surface defects, whilst
in food and beverage products it can impair
shelf-life and taste. Remox is the first mem-
brane degasser to be available on the rental
market and can treat up to 100 m3 of water
per hour. The degassing system is fully auto-
matic with on-line monitoring for complete
operational security, and is complete with all
necessary compressed air, nitrogen and vacuum
equipment.
Permanent
Operational problems with mobile plants are
rare, there are hardly any chemical additions
and no chemical handling and disposal issues,
and regular maintenance service visits are
included in the hire contract. This means that
total operational costs can be forecast with a
FEATURE
Elga Process Water
changes its name
to Veolia Water
Technologies
Having traded as Elga Process Water for
over a decade with Veolia as a parent, the
company now feels that it is in a strong
position to fully rebrand as Veolia Water
Technologies.
This is part of an overall rebranding of
Veolia Environnement, which will be known
simply as Veolia and will represent the
three business activities of water, waste and
energy.
New identity
Commenting on the new identity, Martyn
Fisher, Managing Director, Process Water,
Veolia Water Technologies, said: We are
transforming the business into one that
is focused on building partnerships with
customers, developing and delivering new
products, providing market-leading cus-
tomer services and service support. Our
new brand recognises that we are part of a
global team capable of offering innovative,
integrated and sustainable water-treatment
products and technology to a world that is
severely water stressed.
Coinciding with the rebrand, Veolia Water
Technologies has moved from Marlow to a
new high-tech office in High Wycombe.
Fisher continued: It is an exciting time
for us and our customers who will benefit
from the move. It is equipped with the lat-
est technology, which will help promote our
culture of working smarter, streamline our
processes and integrate our systems, mak-
ing all aspects of customer contact more
efficient from sales enquiries and contract
execution to technical support and booking
service engineers.
high level of certainty, and with no require-
ment for capital investment. If the raw-water
quality changes, the mobile plant can be easily
reconfigured. No wonder that more and more
temporary systems are becoming permanent.
Contact:
Veolia Water Technologies, Windsor Court,
Kingsmead Business Park, High Wycombe
HP11 1JU, UK. Tel: +44 1628 89 70 00,
www.aquamove.co.uk,
www.veoliawatertechnologies.co.uk/processwater
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Membrane Technology