WATER REUSE RESOURCES

  • Whether an area is urban or rural, large or small, its water and wastewater treatment utilities face pressures ranging from supply scarcity and increasing operational costs to more stringent regulatory guidelines. These pressures have combined in recent years to shift the conversation around potable water reuse from a potential option to an increasingly important water management strategy.

  • As communities and industries compete for finite water supplies, utilities are looking for strategies that support economic growth while reducing pressure on existing resources.

  • Data centers are evolving into industrial-scale thermal-management facilities as artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC), cloud platforms, and accelerated computing increase rack power density. Modern AI racks can exceed 50–120 kW per rack, creating substantially higher heat-rejection requirements than conventional enterprise infrastructure. ASHRAE's (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) AI Data Center Energy Performance Framework identifies liquid cooling as an important architecture for these high-density environments.
  • Nearly 45–60% of a reverse osmosis (RO) plant's operating cost is linked to energy consumption, while membrane fouling can reduce productivity by 15–40% and increase cleaning costs by thousands of dollars annually. The newest generation of RO systems is therefore focused on reducing energy demand, extending membrane life, and using intelligent monitoring to predict fouling before performance declines.

  • Water scarcity in the U.S. is increasing almost as rapidly as demand for clean drinking water. In response, more municipalities and public utilities are actively pivoting toward water reuse strategies. Yet many of these projects are running up against an archaic administrative bottleneck.
  • For the better part of a decade, industrial electricity prices behaved like a slowly shifting floor. From 2016 through 2020, wholesale prices in most major markets were remarkably stable. A plant built in 2018 could reasonably expect its electricity costs to drift, not lurch, through the early 2020s. That baseline is gone.
  • In an industrial landscape increasingly shaped by lifecycle accountability, material traceability, and rising disposal costs, chromium recovery is not merely a technical alternative — it is a strategic upgrade, where wastewater can become a resource stream.
  • Transitioning to advanced purification methods like UV-hypochlorite oxidation allows municipalities to secure reliable, local water supplies. These strategies mitigate drought risks and protect coastal environments by transforming wastewater into a high-quality resource for reuse.

  • With the rise of water scarcity, environmental regulations, and corporate sustainability mandates, produced water treatment has become a strategic imperative for industries far beyond oil and gas. It is one of the fastest-growing segments in the water treatment industry, which has emerged as an amalgamation of environmental stewardship, regulatory compliance, and technological innovation.
  • People around the globe are trying to figure out how to save, conserve, and reuse water in a variety of ways, including reusing treated sewage wastewater and removing valuable salts from seawater. But for all the clean water they may produce, those processes leave behind a type of liquid called brine. I’m working on getting the water out of that potential source, too.

WATER REUSE SOLUTIONS

  • DE NORA TETRA® ABF Bioactive Filter

    The DE NORA TETRA® ABF bioactive filter combines ozone generation with biologically active filtration for use in municipal water applications. The process targets micropollutant reduction and reduces disinfection byproducts in drinking water and potable reuse applications.

  • UV Advanced Oxidation For Potable Reuse

    Faced with rising water scarcity, advanced facilities are utilizing UV advanced oxidation to destroy persistent chemical micropollutants and achieve stringent pathogen disinfection in a single step, ensuring a highly pure, reliable potable water supply.

  • Sewage Treatment Large Train System: WWT-125

    The newterra WWT-125 is a scalable sewage treatment plant based on 3-container process trains that can each address the requirements of 500 people (125 m3; 33,000 US gal). The advanced, modular system is designed for larger camps with populations ranging from 1,000 to tens of thousands of people. 

  • TrojanUVFlexAOP – Advanced Oxidation System

    Meeting the demand for clean water has never been more challenging. Communities around the world are facing a growing water stress – an insufficient supply, in terms of water quality or water quantity – and often both. Many are turning to potable reuse and drinking water remediation to meet these demands. The TrojanUVFlex®AOP can be part of the solution. This UV advanced oxidation system destroys a range of chemical contaminants while simultaneously providing final treatment, helping municipalities relying on lower quality water sources to continue producing high-quality potable drinking water.

  • SuperDisc™ Disc Filter

    WesTech’s SuperDisc™ Disc Filter from Nordic Water is a Title 22 approved inside-out disc filter.The SuperDisc provides easy access for maintenance and has an efficient high pressure cleaning system. The small footprint and low head required for the filter provides an excellent option for tertiary retrofits, such as travelling bridge sand filters. The SuperDisc can produce reuse-quality effluent and total effluent phosphorus concentrations of less than 0.1 mg/L. Other applications include primary and secondary treatment, as well as a wide range of industrial applications. The SuperDisc filter is available as a freestanding unit with filter discs contained in a stainless steel tank and a version for installation in a concrete basin.

WATER REUSE VIDEOS

On this episode of The Water Online Show, hosts Travis Kennedy and Kevin Westerling interview Fred Gerringer, Brown and Caldwell’s Water Reuse National Practice Leader, about the creation of a first-of-its-kind State Water Reuse Regulatory Guide being developed for the WateReuse Association and its partner organizations.