| Jul. 14, 2005 |
Toray Awarded First Order for Its “High Boron Removal Reverse Osmosis Membrane Element for Seawater Desalination”1) --To Be Adopted at Seawater Desalination Plant in Singapore-- Largest Processing Capacity in Pacific Rim of 136,000 m3/Day |
| Toray Industries, Inc. today announced that
the company received an order for a reverse osmosis membrane element to be used
at a seawater desalination plant with processing capacity of 136,000 m3 a
day in Tuas, Singapore. Under the agreement, Toray will deliver its newly developed “high
boron removal reverse osmosis membrane element.” Hydrochem [S] Pte Ltd.,
a construction company in Singapore, is in charge of the construction of the
facility, which is expected to start operations this summer. The heating and evaporating of seawater to condense and collect fresh water (evaporation method) has been the mainstream seawater desalination technology for producing fresh water, mainly in Middle East. In recent years, however, seawater desalination method using reverse osmosis membrane, or RO membrane, has been gaining popularity around the world, thanks in part to its outstanding economical efficiency. The Singapore government also selected the seawater desalination method using RO membrane to secure water for daily use. The plant will be located at an industrial zone in the Tuas region, home to numerous Japanese companies. The production capacity of the new plant will be 136,000 m3/day, the largest in the Asia-Pacific region. The facility will supply more than 10% of the water requirement and 20% of the water for daily use in Singapore. In 2000, Saudi Arabia had adopted Toray’s RO membrane at its desalination plant in the Arabian Gulf, thereby giving the product a successful track record in the Middle East, the region considered to be the most difficult in terms of desalination. In 2003, its “low fouling reverse osmosis membrane,”2) which was developed for reclaiming wastewater and has the added feature of reduced likelihood for clogging, was adopted by the world’s biggest such plant in Kuwait with a production capacity of 310,000 m3/day. The same membrane element was also adopted at a plant in Seletar, Singapore in June 2003, and is being utilized effectively in the reclamation of wastewater. Hydrochem, which was contracted for the seawater desalination plant this time, chose Toray’s reverse osmosis membrane after taking note of the superior performance and durability of the product. |
| The New Product: Reverse Osmosis
Membrane With High Boron Removal Capability Toray this time succeeded in developing a “high boron removal reverse osmosis membrane for seawater desalination” that reduces the concentration of boron in the produced water to half the level of a conventional RO membrane. Seawater has 4 to 7 mg/l of boron, which is 10 to 50 times the level in land water, and therefore RO membrane used for seawater desalination requires high boron removal capability. When consumed, boron is known to cause reproductive and developmental toxicity in animals and the World Health Organization (WHO) in its guidelines calls for keeping the boron levels in drinking water to 0.5mg/l or less. Still, with the boron molecule being very small, the existing single-step reverse osmosis membrane treatments had the capability to reduce boron levels only up to 1 to 3 mg/l. This has led to the adoption of conventional methods such as repeating the RO membrane process twice or mixing the once treated water with low boron concentration water from other sources. Toray’s existing RO membrane for seawater desalination already possessed features such as outstanding durability to sustain high performance over a long term as well as high capability to remove boron3), a controlled substance in drinking water. Toray this time has succeeded in further boosting the boron removal rate to halve the boron levels in the produced water compared to levels using conventional RO membrane, greatly improving the reliability of water quality. |
| Water Situation in Singapore area of 692.7 km2, slightly more than 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC. While sources for such reservoirs are normally rivers and lakes, Singapore relies on imports from neighboring Malaysia for most of its water needs and the country attaches great importance to water security as part of its national policy. Given such circumstances, wastewater, industrial wastewater and seawater have attracted attention as new water sources in Singapore. Since 2002, the country under its NEWater policy has been developing facilities with sewage and wastewater reuse technology for use as industrial water and for supplying reservoirs. In June 2003, Singapore opted for and installed Toray’s “low fouling RO membrane”2) at a wastewater reclamation plant in Seletar, where the product is being utilized effectively. Going forward, Toray is determined to continue with its efforts in further developing its membrane business for applications such as seawater desalination in order to ensure sustainable water supply in the world. |
| <Notes> |
| 1) Reverse osmosis membrane When a concentrated aqueous solution and a dilute solution are partitioned by a semi-permeable membrane, the water moves from the dilute side to the concentrated side due to osmotic pressure caused by the difference in concentration. At this stage, when a pressure greater than the osmotic pressure is applied to the concentrated side, water moves through the semi-permeable membrane to the dilute side. The membrane separation process employing this phenomenon is called reverse osmosis method and the membrane used is called reverse osmosis membrane, or RO membrane. RO membrane is used to remove metal ions such as sodium and calcium, anions such as chloride ion and sulfate ion and low-molecular organic compounds such as agro chemicals. |
| 2) Low fouling reverse osmosis
membrane In water treatment using membranes, water permeability of a membrane decreases as substances including organic compounds and microorganisms become fixed to the surface of the membrane. This leads to a strong requirement for a low fouling membrane in water treatment. With its polymer technology, Toray has developed a reverse osmosis membrane with high performance low fouling membrane compared to existing membranes and its product is being employed by large-scale wastewater treatment plants. |
| 3) Boron Boron is used in glaze, etc. for glass, porcelain enamel and ceramics and used in the form of boric acid in pharmaceuticals, plating solvents, antiseptic agents, insecticides, etc. Boron exists in seawater in the form of boric acid molecules. |
| <Toray’s Water Treatment
Business> Toray’s basic technologies for water treatment are based on its core technical strengths in synthetic organic chemistry, polymer chemistry and biochemistry. In addition to this RO membrane with high boron removal capability, Toray produces all four types of separation membranes - nano-filtration (NF) membrane that can separate polymer solute, ultra-filtration (UF) membrane and micro-filtration (MF) membrane for completely removing microparticles and bacteria, etc. As a comprehensive membrane manufacturer, the company has been widely commercializing them in various applications. Under its mid-term management issues “Project NT-II” initiated in April 2004, Toray aims to expand the advanced materials business and its profit by selectively allocating resources. As part of this move, Toray is determined to proactively expand its water treatment business, which is crucial to the environment-related fields, based on its world-leading “high performance separation membranes and its application technology.” |
| <Background> In the 21st Century, which is called the “century of water,” the demand for water has been increasing, while exhaustion of water resources and deterioration of water quality has become serious global issues. This has led to demands for technology capable of securing and using sustainable resources for potable water, industrial water and agricultural water. Seawater and wastewater have been gaining attention as sustainable water resources and the Middle East and Singapore, which have been facing serious water shortage, have started utilizing seawater desalination and wastewater reclamation for producing fresh water for various uses. Under such circumstances, Toray has been working on research aimed at development of scientific solutions for water environment issues and commercializing its research results in various water treatment applications further by developing its polymer membrane technology. For example, in the seawater desalination field, the company proposed highly efficient “brine conversion two stage system” and it developed ultra high-pressure reverse osmosis membrane that helped to reduce water production costs in seawater desalination. The quality of water produced using RO membrane is extremely high as the RO membrane removes not only sodium chloride but almost all the substances including heavy-metal ions and organic matters at high rates. The only exception, however, is boron. When consumed, boron is known to cause reproductive and developmental toxicity in animals. The World Health Organization (WHO) in its guidelines calls for keeping boron levels to 0.5mg/l or less in drinking water. Boron concentration in seawater is 4 to 7 mg/l, which is very high compared to land water. With the boron molecule being very small, the conventional single-stage RO membrane method had the capability to reduce boron concentration levels only up to 1 to 3 mg/l. This has led to the adoption of conventional methods such as repeating the RO membrane process twice or mixing the treated water with water having low boron concentration level from other water sources to comply with WHO guidelines. In order to improve the reliability of seawater desalination using RO membranes, a membrane with higher capability to remove boron was required. With all membrane manufacturers working on the research of membrane with high boron removal capability, Toray pioneered the development of high performance reverse osmosis membrane that can halve the boron levels compared to existing membranes. With its expertise in nanotechnology, Toray succeeded in improving boron removal rate without lowering permeability by reducing the space in membrane to pass the small molecules such as boron. Toray expects this newly developed membrane will contribute to secure water in regions and countries suffering from serious water scarcity such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the U.S. and Europe. |
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