Continuation Of Previous Post “New Water Treatment Technology Could Save Billions of Gallons Annually”

Companies can use water that they would otherwise send to the drain Many bottling plants today use reverse osmosis systems to purify the huge amounts of municipal, river or well water they need to produce beverages. That process forces raw water against a membrane that separates out unwanted salts. As a result, about 80 percent of the water that was brought in is cleansed of salts and can be used to make drinks. The remaining 20 percent, waste that contains high salt concentrations, is called brine. GE’s AquaSel is built to treat the brine, and at its heart is an innovation called a non-thermal brine concentrator (NTBC). It contains two key components, one that removes salt from the brine to recover most of the stream as usable water and a small byproduct of an even more concentrated solution and a second that uses a chemical and mechanical process on the concentrated brine to precipitate salt crystals out of it. The resulting treated water is the same quality as that which first flowed into the plant and is reintroduced into the manufacturing process. Combining reverse osmosis with NTBC allows bottling plants to use 99.5 percent of the water they bring in. Zepeda says that a typical AquaSel system will be able to process 150,000 gallons of brine per day. Of that, 143,000 gallons of treated water can be recovered and around 7,000 gallons of waste will head to the drain. Traditional water treatment methods currently employed by bottlers would see all 150,000 gallons of brine leaving the plant as waste. AquaSel’s efficiency upgrades will translate into reductions in a plant’s wastewater volume by 10 to 50 times and its freshwater intake by 10-20 percent. Another option for bottling plants to avoid dumping the brine that AquaSel treats is to use thermal evaporation to purify it, but this requires huge amounts of energy that is friendly to neither the environment nor the manufacturer’s bottom line. “Companies today face higher water usage and discharge costs,” says Zepeda. “This technology gives them a tool to meet higher water efficiencies without the capital and energy costs of putting in a thermal system.” The technology could be useful in petrochemical, wastewater management and water supply sectors Zepeda says the NTBC technology is the greenest choice for treating brine because it harnesses the liquid’s water chemistry without adding any chemicals in. By controlling only its pH, temperature and other environmental properties, NTBC forces salt crystals to precipitate out of solution. He also believes AquaSel, which took GE engineers two-and-a-half years to develop and test, could prove useful in fields beyond the food and beverage industry. His group is investigating its potential in the petrochemical, wastewater management and water supply sectors. Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO of water and process technologies for GE’s power and water business unit, says billions of gallons of water are pulled out of the world’s freshwater supplies needlessly because of technical and economic limitations on bottlers’ abilities to treat and reuse wastewater. “GE’s NTBC technology can turn billions of gallons of lost water into clean, usable water by virtually eliminating the wastewater streams in a variety of industrial and municipal treatment processes,” Markhoff said in a statement.

New Water Treatment Technology Could Save Billions of Gallons Annually

A new technology unveiled by GE during early July’s Singapore International Water Week potentially saves millions of gallons of water a day from being flushed down the drain by the world’s beverage makers.

The company recently completed a pilot run of its new AquaSel water treatment system at an Asian bottling plant. During the two-and-a-half-month production-scale study, the technology helped the plant use almost all the water it took in and reduce its liquid waste stream to less than 1 percent. “This means unprecedented water recovery,” says Juan Alfredo Zepeda, food and beverage industry product manager, water and process technologies for GE’s power and water. “It’s a powerful tool that helps companies use water that they would otherwise send to the drain.” -Will be continue in post

Oil, gas stocks rally after PM hints on price hike

State-run oil and gas companies witnessed a rally in stock prices by 2-4 per cent on Friday on expectations of a fuel price hike following the Petroleum Ministry’s proposal of increasing the diesel price by Rs 10 over a period of next 10 months. BSE Oil and Gas index closed the highest among sectoral indices, up 2.38 per cent from its previous close. Scrip of HPCL rallied the most among PSU oil and gas majors on the BSE to close at Rs 292.90, up 4.23 per cent from its previous close. The stock also saw a more than double increase in its traded volume with total traded quantity being 2.01 lakh against the two week average quantity of 0.59 lakh. Eyeing better price: Similarly Indian Oil Corporation stock ended the day at Rs 268.80, up 3.03 per cent from its previous close while ONGC closed at Rs 265.85, up 2.49 per cent from its previous close. A senior oil and gas equity analyst said: “Through these announcements the Government is trying to attract the investors, get a better price for its follow-on public offers in companies such as Oil India Ltd and help reduce the rising fiscal deficit.” “Through this proposed move of price hike, Government is gradually attempting to wipe out all subsidies and it will benefit not just OMCs but also upstream oil companies as their net on price realisation would improve. However, these proposals also have to meet the due approvals from the PMO and the Cabinet before coming into effect,” he added. A senior Petroleum Ministry official on Thursday had said: “Based on the recommendations of the Kelkar Panel, the proposal is to increase diesel prices by Re 1 a litre every month for next 10 months. For kerosene, effort will be to raise the prices by Rs 10 a litre in phases over a period of two years.” However, the Government has taken no decision so far on the hike and clarified that the final decision would take place only after building a political consensus. The move to propose a price hike has come at a time when under recoveries of State-run OMCs for diesel have gone up nearly Rs 10 a litre while for kerosene, it is Rs 30.93 a litre. The OMCs are partially compensated for this revenue loss of selling below cost by the Government by way of cash subsidy. Last time the diesel price hike came was in September this year when it was raised by Rs 5 a litre after almost two years of the previous increase of Rs 2 a litre in June 2010. Kerosene price was last revised in June 2010 when it was hiked by Rs 3 a litre. According to the Petroleum Ministry, the under recovery on sale of diesel during 2012-13 is estimated to be above Rs 1,03,000 crore while for kerosene it will be about Rs 32,000 crore. While inaugurating the 57th meeting of the National Development Council in New Delhi on Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also alluded to the need for a phased price adjustment in pricing of petroleum and natural gas and limiting the extent of energy subsidies. He added that failure to control subsidies within limits would mean that other plan expenditures would have to be cut or the fiscal deficit target exceeded. In November, the Government revise its fiscal deficit target to 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product for the current financial year from a previous target of 5.1 per cent.

GE’s Engines Power LNG Fueled Drilling Rigs, USA

To reduce the environmental impacts and improve the economic performance of their U.S. unconventional gas production activities, energy developer Seneca Resources Corp. and drilling partner Ensign Drilling have installed two of GE’s Jenbacher gas engines to power the first liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fueled drilling rigs of their kind in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania.

India: Dahej Terminal Receives LNG Cargo

Petronet’s Dahej LNG terminal on India’s west coast received a cargo of LNG onboard the 138,700 cbm Raahi from Qatar today, according to shipping data.

 The Dahej terminal in Gujarat is India’s first LNG import terminal and has a nominal capacity of 10 MMTPA.

The terminal is meeting around 20% of the total gas demand of the country.

Rock Physics and Reservoir Characterization through Surface Measurements

The Guest Lecture by Mr. N. K. Khatri on 31st August 2012 in PDPU on “Rock Physics and Reservoir Characterization through Surface Measurements” The discussions on rock properties, log and rock fluids interpretation.

Japanese company INPEX joins ONGC’s hunt for Oil & Gas in KG Basin deep water block

OIL & NATURAL GAS CORPORATION (ONGC) and INPEX CORPORATION (INPEX), Japan’s largest oil company have entered into a strategic partnership for exploration of hydrocarbons in one of the acreages in KG basin. Both companies have today inked a Farm-out Agreement at ONGC’s corporate head-quarters in New Delhi.