Dow's Camp de Tarragona DEMOWARE Industrial Water Reuse Project Named Environmental Leader's Project Of The Year 2016

A European Union funded DEMOWARE initiative project in the water scarce region of Camp de Tarragona, Spain has been named one of Environmental Leader’s Projects of the Year 2016. The project uses advanced reverse osmosis membranes from Dow Water & Process Solutions (DW&PS), a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company.

The Camp de Tarragona petrochemical complex and surrounding municipalities face competing water demands across the agricultural, industrial, and residential markets. The complex handles 19,000m³ of water per hour and previously used freshwater from the UNESCO-protected Ebro River Basin to power its industrial processes.

The Camp de Tarragona Advanced Water Reclamation Plant,, operated by Veolia Environnement S.A., Aguas Industriales de Tarragona S.A. (AITASA) and the government-owned Catalan water agency, L’Agència Catalana de l’Aigua (ACA), treats wastewater from the Spanish cities of Salou, Tarragona, and Vilaseca for reuse in the complex’s industrial operations. Dow’s reverse osmosis water treatment solutions help reduce the strain on limited, local freshwater resources. Through a combination of DOW FILMTEC BW30XFR-400/34i extra fouling resistant membranes and DOW FILMTEC LE-440i^[1] low-energy membranes, high quality water produced is fed through a pipeline to various plants within the complex for alternative industrial use. The plant’s design and Dow’s low-energy membranes help to reduce energy demand by producing treated water with 33 percent less pressure.

Snehal Desai, global business director of DW&PS, said, “Economic and population growth is driving increasing demand for water resources. Dow’s portfolio of sustainable water treatment solutions helps our customers improve water efficiency and get the most out of every drop of water in a circular economy where resources are reused and reclaimed from waste, thereby reducing demand on new supply.”

The project is a milestone in the improvement of water reuse in the European industrial sector efficiency and municipal processes. Out of approximately 30 projects funded by the European Union’s DEMOWARE initiative, a program to demonstrate innovations that help build a competitive and innovative European water reuse sector, this is the only project related to industrial water reuse.

Dow is also a user of the treated wastewater for its cooling tower operations. The ethylene cracker cooling tower at Dow’s Tarragona site now uses up to 40 percent reclaimed water and has reduced its use of chemicals for water treatment by 23 percent. This frees up more than 200m³ per hour of water rights for the municipality depending on the season. In addition, the wastewater generated by the cooling towers has been reduced by up to 49 percent due to the higher quality of the reused water. These improvements are contributing to Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals to reduce its freshwater intake intensity at key water stressed sites and its waste intensity footprint by 20 percent.

By reclaiming municipal wastewater for industrial purposes, the Camp de Tarragona petrochemical complex is able to minimize water stress and preserve freshwater to meet municipal, tourism, and agricultural demands. With continuous adjustments and improvements, the project targets to serve 90 percent of the complex’s water demand with reclaimed water by 2019.

The DEMOWARE consortium is framed under the European Research and Development funded 7th Framework Program, led by CTM (Centre Tecnológic de Manresa), under the FP7-ENV-2013-WATER-INNO-DEMO Call with the Grant Agreement no 619040.

About Dow Water & Process Solutions
The global leader in sustainable separation and purification technology, Dow Water & Process Solutions is making real progress in the world. We’re helping to make water safer and more accessible, food taste better, pharmaceuticals more effective and industries more efficient and spearheading the development of sustainable technologies that integrate water and energy requirements. Dow Water & Process Solutions offers a broad portfolio of ion exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes, ultrafiltration membranes, particle filters and electrodeionization products, with strong positions in a number of major application areas, including industrial and municipal water, industrial processes, pharmaceuticals, power, oil and gas, residential water and waste and water reuse. For more information, visit www.dowwaterandprocess.com.

About Dow
Dow combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from material, polymer, chemical and biological science to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2015, Dow had annual sales of nearly $49B and employed approximately 49,500 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 179 sites in 35 countries across the globe. On June 1, 2016, Dow became the 100 percent owner of Dow Corning Corporation’s silicones business, a global company with sales of greater than $4.5B in 2015, 25 manufacturing sites in 9 countries and approximately 10,000 employees worldwide. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. For more information, visit www.dow.com.

^[1] The DOW FILMTEC LE-440i Element has since been discontinued. Speak to Dow about other DOW FILMTEC low energy elements: www.dowwaterandprocess.com/contactus.