#04 | Changing the paradigm of brine management

By Mateo Pastur (Cetaqua)

The management of brines, water flows with a high concentration of salts, is a challenge for the industries since they have a high cost of treatment and a strong environmental impact if they are not treated in an adequate way. For years, Cetaqua, Water Technology Centre, has been developing treatments that allow to treat brines in a sustainable way, valorizing the products present in them.

Coastal cities, such as Murcia and Alicante, where there is an overexploitation of aquifers, suffer from seawater intrusion in freshwater bodies and sanitation systems. This situation causes an increase of salinity in the water cycle, which sometimes is difficult to solve at the source. To solve this problem, drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) and water reclamation plants (WRPs) install membrane treatments to reduce the salts in the water so that it can be used in different applications.

These technologies concentrate the salts in brines that are treated as waste and, in some cases, discharged into the environment with a strong environmental impact.  In addition, in some cases the brines also contain high concentrations of nutrients that can cause eutrophication problems. Therefore, there is a need to develop efficient and sustainable processes for brine management in the integral water cycle.

On the other hand, WWTPs and WRPs consume large quantities of chlorinated disinfectants that are commonly purchased from large manufacturers, which leads to problems such as:

    • – High cost and price volatility.
    • – Dependence on the supplier for their supply.
    • – Risks in transport and storage.

Therefore, in-situ production of these disinfectants could be a solution to these problems.

Cetaqua, in the LIFE CONQUER and B-Water Smart projects, is working on an innovative process for the valorization of brines in the urban water cycle in the WRP of Zarandona (Murcia, Spain) and in the WRP of Rincón de León (Alicante, Spain). This consists of an electrochemical process that produces sodium hypochlorite that can be used in the WRPs for cleaning, among other uses. In addition, the process increases water recovery, thus achieving sustainable treatment of the brine, while producing a chemical product with high added value such as sodium hypochlorite.

This innovative brine valorization process changes the paradigm of brine management, from being considered a waste that must be treated for proper disposal, to being a source of resources such as chemical products following the concept of biofactory.