The first water treatment plant in Switzerland using PWNT’s CeraMac® system was officially opened on the 19th of October.
The plant, to be known as Quellwasserwerk Sonnenberg, is commissioned by Swiss water utility ewl energie wasser luzern, a utility provider in the city of Lucerne (Switzerland) that supplies electricity, natural gas, heat, water and telecommunication. Designed by H2U, the fully-automated plant is constructed by KG as the principal contractor.
Joke Cuperus, CEO of PWN and interim CEO of PWNT: “We are very proud that ewl has implemented our CeraMac® technology in their Quellwasserwerk Sonnenberg facility, being the first one in Switzerland”
For Stephan Marty, Chairman of the Executive Board of ewl, the opening was a special moment: “Ensuring the supply of water to the people of Lucerne in an efficient and sustainable manner is a responsible task. We have invested around 28 million Swiss Francs and we overcame some challenges during the project.”
Improved productivity
Raw water flows by gravity through three C-37 CeraMac® vessels to treat up to 30 million litres of high quality drinking water, without the use of chemicals. Each C-37 vessel has 37 ceramic membranes, supplied by Japanese company METAWATER, with very fine pores of 0.1 microns to clean water while maintaining its minerals. The plant is one of the first full scale drinking water plants to use ozone combined with ceramic membranes, to provide improved productivity and enhanced total disinfection.
The CeraMac® system has also been installed in drinking water production plants for PWN, PWNT’s mother company, in Andijk (The Netherlands), for South West Water in Plymouth (UK) and for PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency.
Cost efficiency
PWNT uses ceramic membranes in its CeraMac® technology. With the membranes proven to be in continuous operation for more than 20 years in Japan without breakage, and with the ability to contain up to 90 of these in a single vessel, CeraMac® represents a major cost efficiency breakthrough in water treatment.