DOC2C’s
DOC2C’s: Innovative technologies for DOC removal in drinking water treatment
Priority Axis
Technological and Social InnovationSpecific objective
Technological Innovation
Lead partner
PWN Technologies - PWNContact
Start Date
01/01/2016End Date
31/12/2019Project budget
4 189 804 €ERDF amount
2 513 882 €ERDF rate
60%About
Common challenge
The common challenge tackled by DOC2C's was the existing low-technology infrastructure for drinking water production, soon to become inadequate to ensure supply of excellent water quality while adapting to pollution and climate change.
Production of drinking water is especially vulnerable to these effects in the 2 Seas area, since it depends heavily on fresh surface water instead of groundwater, as do other non-coastal EU regions.
A main threat to production of safe drinking water is the high, fluctuating levels of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) as a result, on the one hand, of climate change, which increases the variance in wet and dry periods, and on the other hand, of increasingly densely populated, heavily industrialised and touristic coastal areas, which contribute to yet more contamination of surface waters and higher demand for water supply.
Conventional treatments for surface water are too rigid to adapt to the erratic influent quality. While the large molecular fraction of organic matter can be filtered easily, DOC negatively affects the efficiency of all treatment steps and ultimately the water quality.
Therefore, the existing production plants increasingly struggled to ensure high standards. Innovative drinking water treatment technologies were needed to meet the challenges faced by the 2 Seas area.
Overall objective
Main outputs
Cross border approach
Main Achievements
DOC2C’s raised the knowledge level about innovative technologies for DOC removal/control and has served as the basis for the evaluation of these technologies by others. All technologies come with pros and cons but having a group of utilities and researchers involved in technology development and validation, gave confidence to the water industry in their decision making about these technologies. Working in collaboration, partners have implemented many novel technological approaches to water treatment and monitoring associated with DOC removal. They have published several peer-reviewed articles as well as a wide range of trade-related periodicals. In addition to the well-attended annual workshops, they presented extensively at national and international conferences and more locally to key stakeholders, including the local community. This has all supported the more rapid transition from low to high technology in the water sector and expanded the range of technical solutions that are suitable to produce drinking water from fresh surface water.
The range of testing provided the evidence and confidence required to make the transition from research to implementation and sharing these insights via DOC2C’s means other utilities and academia can build on this knowledge and decide how best apply it to their own situations when the opportunities arise. Project partners were also aware of many other organizations in the United Kingdom that apply DOC2C learning in their operations. Every water supply situation is unique, but it is likely that others will benefit from DOC2C’s to provide future proof, cost efficient and environmentally friendly approaches to meet their drinking water supply goals. The DOC2C project also contributes to the reduction of investment and operational costs for production and R&D. This was accomplished by the body of work done and reported on by Project Partners so that others can rely on that data and investigate the next stages of development/improvement/applicability rather than invest in the early stages of development.
Testimonial
The DOC2C’s project brought together a group of water industry professionals who worked on laboratory analytical methods, applied research pilot plants using ion exchange and ceramic membranes, prototype a ceramic nanofilter plant, brine treatment, and full-scale plants using innovative technologies in an effort to evaluate techniques for a better understanding of how to control DOC in surface water treatment. This also includes characterization of raw water organics as well as the impact of DOC on any downstream processes of filtration. The cross-border collaboration was an enormous benefit to the project, with project partners and observers sharing and learning from each other’s experience throughout the study.
Holly Shorney-Darby, Senior Project Manager PWNT