Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Dow Water and HidroLotus plan to build the world's largest surface water ultra filtration plant in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, the company said on Wednesday.

Work started in June 2012, and upon completion planned in 2013, the plant is projected to reach daily capacity of 520,000 cubic meters, thus to become one of the main drinking water suppliers for the three-million Baku population, according to the company.

The plant is currently being constructed by HidroLotus, a water infrastructure building company, leveraging Dow's technological capabilities and worldwide expertise in the water filtration segment.

Dow Water supplied advanced UltraFiltration (UF) modules to contribute to the purification of water from the lake in Ceyranbatan, outside Baku, and offered engineering services to support the key part of the complex water management cycle - that starts from the water intake, its treatment, waste neutralization and discharge, transfer and supply to the end-user.

The project will use DOW UF IntegraPac skids and modules, a pre-engineered and ready-to-assembly solution, which will allow faster assembly to meet the project's delivery schedule.

"The plant, which is currently being built in Baku, leverages the know-how and worldwide experience of Dow Water & Process Solutions to contribute to making water safer, cleaner and more available with filtration, purification and separation technologies," said Gergely Nagy, regional commercial manager for Dow Water & Process Solutions in Russia, Eastern Europe, Greece and Turkey.

"The progress we are making today would not have been possible without the highly valued and continued dialogue established and maintained with the local authorities, our customers, the collaboration between the local highly qualified and dedicated specialists, and the Dow team assigned for this project."

DOW UF, used in the design and construction of the plant, utilizes a double-walled, hollow fiber, PVDF membrane, which is much more robust, tolerant to chemical cleanings, and less prone to breakage than those materials used by the average of microfiltration or ultrafiltration products on the market. The uniformity of pore size and outside-in flow ensures the DOW UF membrane creates a good barrier without sacrificing performance. DOW UF is NSF61 certified for drinking water applications, and is effective for removing a good range of particulate matter and facilitates higher solids loading, higher flow area and easy cleaning. In addition, it minimizes energy required to filter water for drinking processes, reduces operational costs and greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

The global leader in sustainable separation and purification technology, Dow Water & Process Solutions is making a clear impact in the world, offering a broad portfolio of ion exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes, ultrafiltration membranes and electrodeionization products, with strong positions in a number of major application areas, including industrial and municipal water, industrial processes, pharmaceuticals, power, residential water and waste and water reuse.

HidroLotus focuses on the environmental sector in order to create integrated solutions for public and private sector clients in Azerbaijan and in the region. The company undertakes to manage an overall portfolio of $1.5 billion in order to construct the nation's infrastructure with the use of the highest technology and with advanced products.

Dow Water & Process Solutions is a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, while HidroLotus LLC is a joint venture between Azeri Hidro Group and Turkish Lotus Group.