AquaSPICE – “Advancing sustainability of process industries through digital and circular water use innovations” (H2020)

General concept

AquaSPICE aims at advancing efficient and circular water use in Process Industries. It adopts a genuinely holistic approach to boost water efficiency and circularity. This approach is holistic in respect to the following domains: Industrial water use and re-use solutions (typology domain). AquaSPICE aims at materializing circular water use in European Process Industries, fostering awareness in resource-efficiency and delivering compact solutions for industrial applications. That challenging aim necessitates (i) fostering the industrial deployment of innovative water treatment and re-use technologies, (ii) closed-loop practices regarding water, energy and substances, (iii) a system for real-time monitoring, assessment and optimization of water (re-)use at different interconnected levels and (iv) an effective organisational, regulatory and business framework. AquaSPICE not only offers these but demonstrates the effectiveness, supported by the breadth of European process industries providing evidence on the achievement of the aforementioned aims. AquaSPICE’s innovations emanate from the requirements of six (6) Case Studies, involving eight (8) industrial actors (Dow, BASF, Water-Link, Solvay, ARETUSA, Agricola, JEMS and TUPRAS) in six (6) EU countries (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia and Romania) and one (1) associated country (Turkey).

The role of UNIVPM in AquaSPICE

UNIVPM gives efforts to optimise industrial water cycles towards increased energy and carbon efficient water re-use in the Rosignano Solvay industrial site (Tuscany, Italy). In particular, the industrial wastewater resulting from the Peroxide and Peracetic Acid production amounts to about 20 m3/h and is characterized by high concentrations of TOC/COD, nitrates, sulphates and, to a lesser extent, phosphates and hydrogen peroxide. The organic consists mainly of phthalic acids and derivatives of phthalic acids, other acids and linear organic di-acids, alcohols and di-alcohols and aromatic compounds. The metals are essentially those coming from stainless steel and carbon steel since the plant is mostly built in stainless steel with some parts in carbon steel. Nitrates and sulphates derive from acidification processes using nitric acid and sulfuric acid, mineral alkalinity given by sodium hydroxide. The proposed solution validates a pilot-scale technology for the treatment of the industrial used water up to the limits for discharge in municipal sewers. By this way this flow can be further treated in ARETUSA reclamation plant and finally re-used for cooling processes back in SOLVAY chemical plant. The pilot-plant will be validated in real environment along with a techno-economic feasibility assessment and digital integration with the industrial production site.

Expected impacts

The AquaSPICE project will have demonstrable impact on EIP Water, one of the five initiatives within the EU 2020 Innovation Union, and will address the thematic priorities and cross-cutting themes with particular emphasis on ‘Water reuse and recycling’, ‘Water and wastewater treatment’, ‘Water governance’, and ‘Decision support systems and monitoring’. The expected impacts include, but not limited to: significant reduction of the current use of fresh water resources, significant steps towards near-zero discharge using closed-loop systems in industrial processes, significant increase of the recovery of water, energy and/or substances and materials and increase of resource and water efficiency by 30% compared to the state-of-the-art.