2. BAUER WATER2
Contents
Water ..................................... 3
Around the Globe ................... 4
Drinking Water ....................... 6
Process Water ....................... 8
Industrial Waste Water ......... 10
Produced Water ................... 12
Expertise .............................. 14
3. Water ...
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... is one of the four elements, and the
one most closely linked to the spirit of
life itself and the enjoyment of it. The
associations it evokes extend from a
cool drink, through playing games at
the water's edge, to swimming in a
lake or the ocean ... emotional mo-
ments embodying pure nature and the
joys of life. So the simple word 'water'
is linked to a range of emotions and
activities, from enthusiastic enjoyment
of the world to the cold fact of the
chemical formula H2O.
In a political, social and economic
context, issues relating to water turn
to more objective and mundane con-
cerns. Are we taking sufficient care
to preserve what is the most valuable
and vital of resources – and the very
basis of human life? One might think
that the some 1.4 billion cubic kilo-
metres of water on Earth should be
enough ... But 97 percent of it is sea
water – that is, salt water – and so
not fit for human consumption without
prior treatment. Of the remaining three
percent of our fresh water resources,
much of it is enclosed in ice, either at
the North or South Pole or in glaciers.
Just 0.6 percent of all the water on
Earth is available directly as fresh
water, and even most of that has to be
subjected to costly and complex treat-
ment before it can be used as drinking
water.
And water consumption varies widely
around the world. Each person in
Germany uses an average of about 125
litres of drinking water per day. Some
comparative figures are: France 156
litres, Italy 213 litres, Switzerland 237
litres, USA 300 litres, and the United
Arab Emirates as much as 500 litres.
Increasing industrialization and tech-
nology has impacted substantially on
water as a resource, placing major
strains on this vital natural element in
innumerable different ways. In recent
decades awareness of the need to
conserve and use water more carefully
has grown significantly. Research and
development has come up with new
methods of treating and purifying
water. Innovative technology is avail-
able to treat water. This technology
includes systems from BAUER Water
GmbH (BWS).
5. B
auer Water is a member of
the BAUER Group, based in
Schrobenhausen in southern
Germany. The third and most recent
Group segment, named Resources,
was established in 2007, and is focu-
sed on a number of key fields which
are of vital importance to all our futu-
res: water, the environment, mineral
resources and energy. Bauer Water
is part of the BAUER Group's Re-
sources segment.
The two other segments – Construc-
tion and Equipment – represent the
BAUER Group's traditional operations
in specialist foundation engineering
and machinery manufacturing. In
those segments, too, water is a per-
manent concern: whether in control-
ling groundwater when installing
foundations, or in the manufacture of
drilling rigs to sink wells. In establish-
ing Bauer Water, we have concen-
trated our years of experience and
expertise in the planning, construc-
tion and operation of water purifica-
tion systems in one unit. The global
presence of Bauer companies, with
over 100 subsidiaries and branch
offices in some 70 countries, pro-
vides Bauer Water with the organiza-
tional backing to operate on every
continent. Wherever Bauer Water is
running a project, the project team
can utilize the existing local Bauer
infrastructure.
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6. C
lean drinking water is a funda-
mental aspect of hygiene, and
is essential to healthy living.
However, clean drinking water is in
short supply – or indeed virtually
unavailable – in many of the world's
countries. In the industrialized nations,
too, the general environmental debate
of recent decades has focused more
and more on issues linked to water,
including an increasing scepticism in
relation to the chemicals contained
in drinking water.
Based on its long-standing experience
and extensive know-how, and employ-
ing innovative process techniques,
Bauer Water has committed itself to
safeguarding public access to fresh
water at the highest level. The portfo-
lio extends from compact treatment
plants for emerging countries – to
cope with the new burdens they face
arising from extensive agricultural
use – and for disaster relief missions
through to turnkey drinking water
works for local communities. Along-
side standardized products, Bauer
Water offers custom solutions adapt-
ed to specific requirements. At the
heart of many treatment plants, featur-
ing in a wide variety of different proj-
ects, is membrane technology. The
plants are modular in design, and can
be supplied in a variety of size options.
One example of this technology is
ultrafiltration, involving membranes
with a pore diameter of 20 nanometres.
This scale is most easily illustrated by
a comparison: if an ultrafiltration pore
had a diameter of one millimetre, the
diameter of a human hair would be
five metres! Aiming to provide its cus-
tomers with a partner in their search
for sustainable and economical water
concepts, the company offers a
package of solutions all from a single
source – from extraction of water re-
sources through to recycling. Bauer
Water's in-house plant manufacturing
operation processes plastic, stainless
steel and untreated steel, as well as
assembling the complete control sys-
tems. Dedicated installer teams carry
out the installation.
Drinking Water
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7.
8. P
rocess water must meet different
quality criteria depending on the
specific industrial application
concerned. Low electrical conductivity,
zero oxygen content and softness are
some characteristics of process water.
As the process water required is usu-
ally obtained from groundwater or
mains water, it must be treated appro-
priately before being fed into boilers,
used for cooling, turned into ultra-pure
water or used in the manufacture of
products. Employing a range of chem-
ical/physical, biological and technical
processes, Bauer Water is able to
meet any customer requirements with
tailored solutions, thereby also help-
ing to cut the actual consumption of
process water. Bauer Water offers its
industrial customers a package which
encompasses consulting, engineering
and service, through to financing. A
particular strength of Bauer Water is
its in-house plant manufacturing oper-
ation. Every plant is produced to spec-
ification, installed and monitored by
the manufacturer through to the com-
missioning stage. The company com-
mits major efforts and financial re-
sources to research and development,
and is continually coming up with new
innovations.
Process Water
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9.
10. Industrial Waste Water
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W
ater needed to operate
industrial plants cannot be
simply extracted from clean
sources, polluted by processing and
then disposed of in sewage plants.
This method is too expensive, and
is the wrong approach in ecological
terms – a fact long overlooked during
the era of industrialization.
Over recent decades, however, a
range of processes have been devel-
oped to recover and re-use process
water. Many industrial plants now re-
cycle the water they need to run; the
"closed circuit" in relation to water is
state of the art. The wide variety of
processes employed in the various
industrial fields also means that differ-
ent types of waste water, with specific
pollutant contents, are produced. Usu-
ally this water has to be pre-treated
before being allowed to enter public
treatment plants, or it is definitively
treated before being routed into an
outfall. Ideally, process water can be
re-treated and returned to the produc-
tion operation. In some cases it is also
possible to extract raw materials from
the waste water, such as from fermen-
tation residues and production waste.
Decontamination of polluted water by
naturally occurring radioactive materi-
al (NORM) is an integral part of the
Bauer Water portfolio, as is the deacti-
vation of waste water in the pharma-
ceutical industry and the sterilization
of waste water from research institutes,
hospitals, etc.
With its PURE reed-bed treatment
plant, Bauer Water offers an opera-
tionally safe biological method for the
distributed purification of waste water.
The success of this low-maintenance,
stable ecological process technique is
based on the harmonious interaction
between the plants, the filter gravel
and micro-organisms.
11.
12. Produced Water
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P
roduced water refers to water
produced in the oil and gas in-
dustry in the course of extraction
operations. Produced water contains
impurities due to hydrocarbons and
mineral substances, as well as heavy
metals too in some cases, which occur
in oil and gas reservoirs. Produced
water is industrial waste – and in part
also a recyclable raw material – which
has to be treated and cleaned before
being disposed of or re-used.
Bauer Water has set itself the goal of
becoming a leading vendor of custom
complete solutions which are advanced
in design, fit for the future, sustainable
and economical. Filtration, centrifuga-
tion, flotation and biological processes
are the technologies it is employing to
this end. As a partner to the oil and gas
industry, Bauer Water offers a range of
packages including complete DBOOT
(Design, Build, Operate, Own and
Transfer) solutions. The deployment of
all available technologies enables
substantial oil content to be extracted
from the contaminated water and re-
covered on behalf of the customer.
Moreover, all processes are designed
to further conserve valuable resources
by saving energy. A project unmatched
anywhere in the world is Bauer Nimr
Oman, an enormous reed-bed treat-
ment plant constructed by Bauer
Water on a 1.8 by 3.3 kilometre site in
the desert of Oman for the treatment
of waste water from oil extraction. The
project is an exemplary model of an
ecological/biological produced water
process. By employing this technique,
Oman is adopting an eco-friendly
approach to the processing of its oil
resources. The biological treatment
plant is located close to the country's
most productive oil field. The prepara-
tory works involved extensive earth
movement and the cultivation of thou-
sands of reeds. Stepped treatment
basins provide the plant with a natural
gradient. The contaminated water is
cascaded through the basins and is
subjected to biological purification.
Residues produced include salt due
to evaporation, which can in turn be
reused for industrial purposes. The
marketing of this salt is a key element
of the project's financing. Bauer Water
has also contracted to operate the
plant for a period of 20 years.
13.
14. BAUER WATER14
Our Expertise
• Consulting
• Planning
• Execution
• Operation
• Service
Our Processes
• Chemical/physical
• Biological
• Thermal
• Filtration
• Disinfection
Our Markets
• Oil and gas
• Automotive
• Chemicals
• Food and beverages
• Pharmaceuticals
• Energy
• Mining
• Processing industries
