By: Mining review Africa

“Traditionally speaking, Xylem in South Africa is only known, or mostly known, for its pumping solutions. However with the acquisition of Evoqua Water Technologies a few years ago we have the opportunity to bring a broader, full industrial treatment solution into the country.

“With the rise of water scarcity globally, and of course in South Africa we’re feeling it as well, there’s a higher need for starting to look at water as a resource as opposed to a risk.

And this is where reuse has become an important conversation to have,” said Chetan Mistry, Africa strategy and marketing manager at Xylem in his event opening speech.

He added that the issue of treatment of water is an important conversation to have, including in the mining industry as one of the highest users of water.

“In cases where water isn’t treated as a total solution option, it’s treated as a once-off, as an example when water from mining, from a dewatering perspective, is removed how do we recycle and reuse it for further purposes?

“This can be the same conversation as far as process water is concerned. We’ve got to look at every drop that we can conserve and repurpose so that we can make it reusable instead of being lost into the system.

“This custodianship of water is critical so that we can conserve this resource and make sure that we are responsible in communities today.

“The opportunity with Evoqua is that it is a specialised treatment solutions company, bringing these solutions harmoniously well together to really give a total solution approach.

“The benefit of Evoqua’s solutions is that they are taken from an outcomes based perspective, meaning that we look at what do you desire, what is your outcome, what kind of quality of water do you need, what is the output that you have, and base the design, the building, the operation all around that outcome.

“Our teams went through a few protocols from understanding the technology for DAF, the technical overview on how it works, some of the parameters and important considerations for design.

“We then went into some of the applications that are applicable for DAF, and what is clear is that DAF can fit into any treatment environment that you need, whether it’s an industrial situation, a municipal situation or a poultry farm.”

The event was themed Clarity Where it Counts as it was essentially about treatment being all about clarifying water. Among other things it was meant to showcase why the company is bringing the solution to the markets in South Africa.

This included a tour of the facility for a demonstration of some of Xylem’s systems and products, and observing the teams responsible for making sure the systems are kept running and up to date.

This was followed by a demonstration of how the DAF system works, showing how the water flows through, how the skimming process works, how the fluctuation works and how the air moves to bring the particles to the top so they can skim, and how this clarifies the water.

Simple unit

DAF acts as a pretreatment solution optimising and enhancing an existing treatment chain, which is important for the issue of deteriorated water in South Africa today.

The system allows for significant amounts of solids and biochemical oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand units to be removed for the improvement and optimisation of the downstream treatment chains. This ensures there is less strain on the system, leading to its efficiency.

“This makes the enhancements of water reuse that much more effective. In every situation, every scenario is very different. Therefore, consultative, unique lenses apply to any situation.

“We need to design the systems effectively, measuring the water quality and understanding exactly what is required, then designing a solution based on that.

“With this type of approach we can ensure that the reuse strategy is fit for purpose, meaning that every reuse scenario does not have to mean that it’s for potable water.

“In the mining environment we can have some of the water to the standard that is good enough for dust suppression, good enough for wash downs, and scenarios like that. But the whole reuse opportunity is there from start to finish to make sure that even potable water is a true scenario. It’s just a question of strategy and how far and how wide we want to actually go with it.”

While Xylem was launched in 2014, the multiple brands within it, Flygt, Lowara and Verico, have a legacy of more than 100 years. Hence the Xylem brand name encapsulating all these brands is something relatively new.

“The history of South Africa’s journey from a Xylem perspective is that we started off with distributing Flygt’s submersible pumps, mixers and related intelligent controls for water and wastewater applications.

“Significantly, Flygt has been in the country for approximately 40 or 50 years, so we were privileged to come in and play a part with the distribution.

“Now that Xylem South Africa is part of the global family, this is an opportunity to bring all these global technologies into the country. This is critical for long running and sustainable life cycle solutions.

“We are faced with stringent water problems at the moment, and these solutions will go a long way to actually help solve some of the problems, and therefore it’s a great opportunity to bring them to market,” said Mistry as he was concluding his presentation.