Largest Desalination Plant Utilizing Filmtec™ Membranes Now Fully Commissioned

Midland, MI — The second phase of the world's largest desalination plant is now successfully running. Due to the successful start up, the entire plant was fully commissioned and turned over to operations. The plant continues to rely on FILMTEC™ membrane technology from The Dow Chemical Company for the plant's highly demanding seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) process.

Located in Ashkelon, Israel, the plant serves one of the most water-challenged areas of the world. The plant, owned and operated by VID Desalination Company, is designed to produce a total of 330,000 m³ per day of water. This will provide a sustainable source of fresh water to approximately 15 percent of the households in Israel located in areas with extremely dry conditions and limited fresh water sources.

VID Desalination Company is a consortium of IDE Technologies Ltd. equally owned by Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL) of the Israel Corporation Ltd. and Delek Group, as well as Veolia Water S.A.

"The successful operation of this plant speaks to the bright future seawater reverse osmosis technology has in addressing the needs of other regions, such as China, India and Africa, that are facing growing demand and limited availability of freshwater resources," said Ian Barbour, general manager of the Dow Liquid Separations business and CEO of FilmTec Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.

Consisting of 40,000 FILMTEC reverse osmosis (RO) elements in 32 RO treatment trains, the plant uses an optimized, multi-stage RO configuration and includes a boron removal process. The design is highly flexible and readily adjustable to feed water temperature fluctuations, and is capable of delivering water quality that exceeds the World Health Organization standards.

"The success of this project is attributed to working with reliable and experienced partners and demonstrates once again that seawater desalination is a proven, sustainable source of fresh water," stated Lance Johnson, manager, global large desalination projects for The Dow Chemical Company. "And, at 52 cents per cubic meter, the plant is a testament to how advances in RO membrane technology have enabled the production of quality drinking water from seawater more affordable and energy efficient."

Over the past ten years, FilmTec has helped to decrease the cost of water treated by RO elements nearly threefold, while enhancements in membrane throughput and rejection have led to significant reductions in energy consumption.

"Our driving vision is to help customers produce the highest quality water at the lowest possible cost, and we're excited to see that vision achieved when put to the Ashkelon reality test," noted Barbour.

The project began in April 2003 and is part of a Desalination Master Plan launched by Israel in 2002 to help address the country's chronic water resource problems. The Water and Desalination Authority of Israel will use the treated water to supplement and upgrade the existing potable municipal water supply in this region with extremely dry conditions and limited fresh water resources.

Dow's association and close coordination with The OTID Consortium and Jacobson Agencies Ltd., Dow's agent in Israel, was instrumental in the initial start up. The OTID Consortium is an association formed by OTV, part of Veolia Water, and IDE Technologies Ltd., and selected FILMTEC RO elements for the seawater desalination plant to meet the demanding needs of the Ashkelon SWRO process.

SOURCE: The Dow Chemical Company