Tarragona
The Tarragona site is located in the south of Catalonia (Spain).
It is a fully integrated Water Reclamation Unit (WRU) utilising the secondary effluent from two municipal wastewater plants (Vila-Seca and Tarragona), including its treatment and distribution to the end-user. The Camp de Tarragona Water Reclamation Plant was put on stream by the end of 2012 and was subsidized by European Structural Funds.
The world-class Dow’ Global Water Application Development Center, built and put in operation in 2011, and that was subsidized by both the Spanish and Catalonian Administrations will be a key supporting innovation enabler to guarantee the success of the associated tasks related to this demo site.
The Tarragona area is highly water stressed and granted water rights to users hinder further growth in the region. Water reuse in the industrial park (petrochemical complex) will free up existing raw water rights to meet future local (municipal and tourism) demand. The final target is to serve 90% of the water demand of the industrial park with reclaimed water produced by Camp de Tarragona Reclamation Plant
In DEMOWARE this case is to demonstrate how water stress in a European region can be mitigated by fostering industrial water reuse. It will exemplify better allocation of water resources in the region by demonstrating technical feasibility and affordability of industrial reuse. It will thereby address questions of water reuse in industry which might be similar in other European cases.
Water quality is key in industrial reuse of wastewater as different water composition can have quite negative effects on distribution and at the end-use application, e.g. corrosion or stronger biogrowth in cooling tower system due to higher ammonia levels. The issues to be addressed are thus primarily technical:
- Optimisation of pre-treatment and membrane performance to reduce chemicals and energy use.
- Failure Mode and Effect Analysis in RO systems.
- Demonstrate the feasibility of using urban reclaimed wastewater for high sensitive industrial applications
- Test new fouling resistant UF and RO membranes
