Veolia Water Technologies has designed and installed a bespoke centralised water purification system in a newly refurbished laboratory for a Hertfordshire-based biopharma company. The bespoke solution, utilising existing CENTRA reverse osmosis technology, provides a higher make-up rate of purified water to fulfil the company’s requirements.
As part of the process of building a space to create a new laboratory, the biopharma company investigated decommissioning, relocating and recommissioning an existing water treatment plant located in an adjacent building. However, Veolia Water Technologies’ Scientific Sales Manager worked with all of the stakeholders to establish a realistic demand profile. When analysed, the data demonstrated that a new water treatment system offering a higher makeup rate, smaller storage capacity and a higher flow rate would be a more efficient solution than that which would be offered by the existing system.
Therefore, to meet the requirements of the new laboratory, Veolia Water Technologies recommended modifying its standard CENTRA R200 HFV unit to provide the higher make-up rate, which optimised the way that large volumes of pure water are produced, stored and distributed – as one self-contained integrated solution.
The standard CENTRA R200 is a complete water purification, storage, control and distribution system featuring a 200 litre per hour reverse osmosis (RO) module and 0.2 μm filter. Its compact design provides more flexible installation options for refurbishments and a small footprint that means that it can be placed closer to the laboratory. This eliminates the drawbacks associated with extensive pipework loops, saving on costs and design constraints.
Using this standard CENTRA R200 HFV unit as a basis, Veolia Water Technologies designed and installed a bespoke CENTRA solution that could generate 600 litres of purified water per hour. Named the CENTRA R600 HFV, the new solution is designed to take tap water from the mains and pass it through an initial reverse osmosis purification stage. This system then has an extra cylinder attached, which further purifies the water through a mixed resin bed, thus meeting and exceeding Type 2 quality.
“To meet the higher output requirements, we also substituted the standard CENTRA R200’s 200 L/hr RO membrane for two 300’s to achieve a make-up rate of 600 L/hr,” explained Harriet French, Scientific Sales Manager at Veolia Water Technologies.
“Every client comes to us with a new set of requirements and constraints so we are adept at adapting our approach and technologies too; this product lends itself to flow upgrades and this isn’t the first time we have been able to create a bespoke solution using it.”
