The consortium has already tested INCOVER technologies individually at lab scale. The innovation of INCOVER project comes from the combination of all INCOVER technologies, for a bio-production and resource recovery-based wastewater treatment. The description of each technology is as follows:

Disinfection

Solar driven ultrafiltration

Ultrafiltration is a pressure driven membrane process, which is increasingly applied in advanced water treatment processes, particularly to improve the water quality with respect to organic and microbiological parameters. Ultrafiltration technology reliably retains 99.9999% microorganisms, bacteria and viruses.Compared to the conventional treatment, the ultrafiltration process has many advantages such as consistent quality of water produced, savings on water purification chemicals, energy and operational cost as well as easy automation and smaller footprint requirements. Powered by renewable energy, Solarspring uses chemical free ultrafiltration technology in combination with activated carbon filtration and UV-disinfection to produce clean and safe water. The system design covers the whole treatment chain from pumping, purification, disinfection and storage. High quality components, automatic operation with PLC and remote online monitoring are the features of Solarspring’s ultrafiltration systems. Automatic back flush and intelligent energy management make the system extremely efficient, low maintenance, and ideal for remote applications.

Flow chart of the solar driven ultrafiltration and disinfection system

Solar driven electro-chlorination

Technology description

The implemented SuMeWa|SYSTEM uses solar PV generated electricity to run an electro-chlorination process, which generates chlorine from the natural chloride content of the STP. This allows the safe disinfection for different reuse applications. This process operates completely autonomous, as neither chemicals nor external energy supply is required for its operation. Within the INCOVER project a first pilot system was installed at the El Toyo WWTP in Almeria, where it is treating the effluent of a constructed wetland (CW), with a pilot capacity of up to 200 L/h. The CW effluent is pumped through an advance media filtration and then stored in a large storage tank. Here chlorine, which is produced in a side stream, is added. First water quality evaluations have shown that this combination can reduce the pathogen load to 0 meeting the highest quality parameters for wastewater reuse.

Solar-driven AO System installed in mobile trailer at Almeria El Toyo WWTP (AUTARCON GmbH)

Connection to wetlands for WWTP effluent polishing (right) and irrigational tank (left)

Solar driven AO pilot station and in-situ chlorine production (AUTARCON GmbH)

Key benefits of the technology

100% solar driven
Very low in maintenance,
Chemical free : no transport, storage and handling of dangerous disinfecting substances
Autonomous operation

Objectives by the end of the project

By the end of this project AUTARCON plans to offer a product that can be implemented in some further pilot sites running under different wastewater treatment schemes. With the positive outcome of those pilots AUTARCON will start marketing of the technology in southern Europe. ose pilots AUTARCON will start marketing of the technology in southern Europe.

Target application / end-users

Smaller scale WWTPs in rural areas
Water scarce areas with large demand for water

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

TRL 8/9