Dow Chemical Thailand announced that DOW IntegraPac? Ultrafiltration technology is operational at the Power, Utilities & Infrastructure (PU&I) facility in its Rayong’s Asia Industrial Estate Site, treating water for the production process. Initiated in September, Dow’s new water filtration technology has helped enhance operational efficiency at the facility, while reducing waste and maintenance costs.
“With continual growth in number of industrial factories, Dow technology does it part to minimize impact on the environment by promoting efficient resource management,” comments Jirasak Singmaneechai, managing director of Dow Chemical Thailand. “Dow firmly embraces the principles of clean technology and pollution prevention, and is committed to solving global water challenges through innovation.”
IntegraPacTM Ultrafiltration technology helps the industrial sector manage water consumption efficiently. The technology can be utilized broadly for a variety of applications, including in the production system for municipal water supply, water treatment for industrial processes that requires high purity water, pre-treatment of water for demineralized water production and reverse osmosis systems, and within resin filtration tank systems.
“Dow strives to develop water management solutions that promote environmental management, improve efficiency, and elevate industrial standards towards sustainable practises,” notes Lance Johnson, Asia Pacific commercial director of Dow Water & Process Solutions. “We are delighted to showcase the DOW IntegraPacTM Ultrafiltration skids as one of our standout innovations.”
The DOW IntegraPacTM skids utilize Dow’s proven ultrafiltration membrane technology, which is based on technically advanced hydrophilic PVDF hollow fibre with a uniform pore size of 0.03 microns. This product is highly durable, easy to clean, and is able to maintain high performance under a wide range of feed water conditions. The pre-engineered and streamlined ultrafiltration skids are uniquely design to save space, reduce material costs, lower freight costs, and enable faster and cost-effective assembly.
The DOW IntegraPacTM skids dissociate particulates, contaminants and microorganisms, such as bacteria and virus, from raw water. Pressure is used as a main mechanism to force water feed through specially-designed, semipermeable membranes. Particles larger than the membrane’s pore size are retained, while water and smaller particles pass through the membrane to improve water quality and purity. Overall, the system helps lower environmental impact through water flow design, or dead-end flow, which reduces drain and wastewater, and allows for additional energy savings.
The DOW IntegraPacTM skids use a filtration process operating with a unique “outside-in” hollow fibre configuration, in which the flow of the feed solution is permeated radially from the outside surface, while clean water flows inside the tubular structure of the ultrafiltration module. The system allows for significantly less blockage, since outside membrane surface areas are comparatively larger than the inside. The product allows for easy cleaning by air scouring, a method employed to compress air to scour the membrane surface.