(MENAFNEditorial) Dow Water & Process Solutions (DW&PS), a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), is making milestone progress on two water technology projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Progress is on track with its best-in-class manufacturing facility for DOW FILMTEC™ reverse osmosis (RO) elements – the site has been identified and initial engineering has commenced. Dow has also confirmed that a new pilot plant will be launched at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
"Investments in Saudi Arabia represent a big step forward in our thirty-year commitment to the region, and a tremendous opportunity for Dow to better serve its customers with strong R&D and commercial manufacturing facilities," said Snehal Desai, global business director for Dow Water & Process Solutions. "Our presence in the region strengthens our ability to address the area's unique water needs and provides us with access to emerging markets, such as Eastern Europe, China and Southeast Asia."
Reverse Osmosis Facilit
Dow's reverse osmosis manufacturing facility is on track to deliver local supply security of cutting-edge technologies for water desalination and water re-use for potable, non-potable and industrial water serving Saudi Arabia, the surrounding Middle East and North Africa regions and emerging markets worldwide. This facility is the first of its kind built outside the United States, and will locally manufacture high-tech reverse osmosis membranes that enable the production of drinking and industrial-use water. "In fact, these membranes have the capability to reduce the oil requirement to distill water in the region by approximately $1 billion per year," said Desai
Dow water membrane technologies are delivering cost-savings through reduced energy use and better operational efficiencies for customers in the desalination, industrial, municipal, commercial and residential sectors. This has been demonstrated locally with a small-scale Dow mobile pilot, which has been processing difficult-to-treat-water for more than a year from the Arabian Gulf. The system has demonstrated sustainable performance and economic advantages.
"High-performance DOW FILMTEC elements are used in some of the most water-challenged areas of the world, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," said Desai. "A great example of this is the Shoaiba Barge Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) plant, which is among the country's largest desalination plants of its kind.
KAUST Pilot Projec
As part of its collaboration agreement initiated in 2009 with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Dow has announced a large-scale pilot plant that will serve as a water technology research center beginning in the second quarter of 2014. With access to seawater from the Red Sea, top water scientists will use the Dow Industrial Scale Water and Process Solutions Pilot Plant to test real-world scenarios at industry scale to further advance water filtration and purification
Seawater desalination in the Middle East is challenging primarily due to fouling problems. With the resources at KAUST, Dow will be able to offer better solutions to reliable drinking water production. The multi-million dollar KAUST facility is part of Dow's global research and development (R&D) organization and is committed to delivering science-based solutions for some of the world's biggest challenges such as health, energy, climate change, transportation and sustainable consumption
For more information on water technology investment in Saudi Arabia, please visit http://www.dowwaterandprocess.com/en/news/press-releases/2011/dow-to-invest-in-water-technology-in-saudi-arabia#sthash.Ovrlcj96.dpu
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