CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

CTO OUTLOOK

Introducing the future of tertiary treatment

Lenntech has been spearheading innovation in process recovery with its expertise spanning brine concentration to sludge management.
David van Lennep discusses its diverse range of ongoing projects and the power of collaboration in the water technology sector.

Can you introduce how Lenntech works with of brines either through dried salt produc-
water technology providers and its role in tion (zero liquid discharge) or through
testing new technologies or introducing splitting the brines into chemicals, acids
them to market? and caustics that can be reused onsite.
There are probably few industry sectors In the Netherlands, there is currently
that are as fragmented as the water puri- a large issue with ammonium/ammonia
fication market. I think you could eas- emissions in the agricultural sector. We
ily say that there could be 40 different key are combining different (electro) mem-
technologies, starting from a simple grid brane and gas recovery processes here to
to the finest nuclear grade mixed bed ion remove the ammonium from the manure.
exchanger. Assuming that there are prob- Finally, we are also proud to be building a
ably three to five specialised manufacturers new demonstration containerised sludge
for each of these individual process tech- treatment system, to recover ‘Kaumera’ (a
nologies, this means that a solutions inte- biopolymer) from the Nereda process.
grator/provider such as Lenntech needs to
have thorough knowledge and experience Which solution or technology is Lenntech
in combining these technologies and their seeing most demand for currently and why
providers into a turn-key solution. do you think that is?
Lenntech cooperates with all technolo- Water recycling and water footprint reduc-
gy providers on a case-by-case basis, which tion have been hot for the last 20 years but
allows us to pair the best-case scenario in reality, the real requests and projects
for each customer’s needs. We serve as a are only being placed in the last few years.
focal point for new processes which want Many plants already have primary and sec-
to penetrate the market and the way that ondary wastewater treatment systems in
we usually work with them is by initially place but are looking at the tertiary solu-
evaluating their TRL. Depending on the tions, which is where Lenntech fits in well,
latter we can either offer them a part in the as we do not primarily focus on sedimenta-
research projects that we’re working on or tion and biological processes. I believe the
in small to medium commercial projects. boardroom is now really feeling the pres-
Our proven way to perform on the last sure from its stakeholders to perform in
point is through the 3-step approach: labo- this field. The more challenging requests
ratory proof of principle, piloting and then we are seeing are for higher process recov-
DAVID VAN LENNEP the engineering and building of a full-scale eries and salts or nutrients recovery.
Owner and Managing Director, Lenntech system. We can quickly provide customers
with a proof of concept and with the option What is a major project you are working on
David van Lennep started his early career of onsite testing with our mobile pilots. related to desalination or brine concentra-
as a technical sales engineer in an environ- This builds the trust to our suggested solu- tion at the moment, and what impact will it
tions for the project to be completed with have for clients?
mental technology start-up company based
the building of a full-scale system. As part of the Horizon 2020 Water Min-
in the Netherlands, whose main specialisa- ing project, we are investigating and pilot-
tion was advanced oxidation with ozone What are the key projects you are currently ing nanofiltration and advanced high-pres-
and catalysts. When the company hit rough looking at in your R&D activity and why? sure staged nanofiltration for multivalent
times due to low-cost activated carbon from Lenntech is gradually getting more and removal and for NaCl brine concentration
more traction in applied research of up to high double-digit TDS. The main
China reaching the market, van Lennep
advanced separation and concentration pro- impact for our clients is to prevent or delay
started his own company, Lenntech, almost cesses, which results in all sorts of requests evaporation/crystallisation as far as possi-
29 years ago. Today Lenntech is a recog- from academic institutions all the way to ble to prevent high capex and opex costs.
nised international systems integrator in big industrial names and known innovation We have also successfully engineered,
the water treatment industry. organisations. Currently we’re cooperating built, and implemented several closed-cir-
with NASA trying to establish and poten- cuit reverse osmosis (CCRO) projects for
tially validate simple and efficient solutions industrial clients in Europe over the last
to treat the wastewater streams of their years in collaboration with Desalitech. The
planned Lunar or Mars habitation scheme. main impact for our clients is the highest
Other projects include the valorisation possible recovery and low biofouling.

12 / GWI JANUARY 2022

 CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

How do you see the potential for recovery of

materials from brines and how do we accel- FROM THE LAB TO THE MOON
erate the economics?
Recovering salts and other materials of Laboratory-based proof of concept is a foundational pillar in Lenntech’s approach to bringing new solutions
brines has been the topic of decades of to the market. A current colaboration with NASA seeks to validate wastewater systems for lunar habitation.
effort in the water community but we’re
lucky enough to be in an era that has
brought about many interesting technol-
ogy options to do so. Material recovery
from brine is all the rage in the academic
community right now with many EU
research projects running. There are also
big efforts from large desalination users
in the MENA region to valorise the brines
from their plants and build their business
cases. Certainly such efforts are not cheap
and currently the costs involved require big
capacities in order to produce a reasonable
ROI. Each case must be thoroughly studied
to see what produced materials make more
commercial sense locally and what are the
requested specifications.
To accelerate the economics, we have
to find case studies where the purity of
the recovered materials from brines is less
mission critical and where the recovered
materials or compounds/chemicals can be Source: Lenntech
directly applied at the same plant location.
tems that Lenntech supplies? Industries are
What is the current status of the LIFE BRINE- Lenntech supplies its systems with remote
MINING project and what is Lenntech devel- access and data logging solutions with ‘in approaching us
oping as part of that project?
As part of a European Life consortium pro-
the cloud’ access. In fact, we try to enforce
it or make it critical for warranty and ser-
for treating their own
ject, we are applying ceramic ultrafiltration, vice. In reality, few companies or organisa- process product streams
nanofiltration, selective precipitation, ultra- tions encourage any access to on-site data
high pressure RO (UHPRO) and electro- so this can be quite a challenge. or liquids, which are
dialysis to coal mining wastewater brine. not necessarily classical
Other partners in our consortium are add- Where are you looking for new ideas for
ing further evaporation and crystallisation innovation outside of Lenntech? water treatment cases.
to achieve full ZLD. In March 2022 we will The interesting part is that industries are
David van Lennep, Lenntech
be starting up the demonstration plant. approaching us for treating their own pro-
cess product streams or liquids, which are
In which end-user market do you see the not necessarily classical water treatment entities – to reach out to us for collabora-
greatest need for new or enhanced water cases. What we see is that any aqueous tion. My belief is that the real know-how is
management solutions and why? liquid can potentially be treated with our in the right process application of the tech-
I would not say there is a specific indus- advanced separation and concentration nologies and not so much in the manufac-
try sector attracting most attention. Out- technologies, whether they are pressure turing of a specific machine or filter.
side factors such as permit limitations for driven, electrochemically driven, sorption
extracting (ground) water and the public driven or thermally driven. For example, What do you think will be the game chang-
image or the willingness to strongly dimin- many organic rich solutions need to be ing technologies in the water sector in the
ish the water footprint play large roles. de-acidified, desalinated or concentrated next ten years? What is ripe for disruption?
Another trend throughout different (dewatered). This forces us to stretch the For our market, all next step membrane
industries we see is the request to choose process parameters we are used to applying recovery improvements such as UHPRO,
processes or solutions that consume less in regular water treatment to the next level. high performance nanofiltration, sol-
chemicals or produce as little chemical The innovations then come from real life vent resistant membranes, variations of
waste as possible. Energy consumption industrial applications we are testing on. membrane distillation, advanced electro-
then only comes second as that can always Also, constant interactions with spe- membrane processes, very tight ceramic
be bought or produced green. cialised external technology providers from filtration and selective ion exchange resins.
our partner network can be very benefi- These may not necessarily be game-chang-
How is Lenntech looking at greater involve- cial here and, in that sense, I would always ing but hopefully our work will showcase
ment in the digital water space? Are there invite specialised technology providers in major improvements in several of these
particular solutions you are developing the separation and concentration field – innovative process applications. <
here to optimise the operation of the sys- whether start-ups or established industrial

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