The market for water treatment is huge and divers. In the oil & gas industry there is upstream separation of well fluids and produced water treatment. And downstream wastewater treatment, for example for terminals or refineries. Also in other industries treatment of process water or wastewater is an essential part of the production process. And then we have drinking water and sewage treatment. Over the last 50 years many companies have entered these lucrative markets. Most of them don’t have their own technologies. Still, they promise the best performance. And most of them see only price as a way to compete.

We can safely say that 90% of the plants we see in the field either has a very poor performance or doesn’t work at all. Some examples:

1. CPI separators filled with sand because nobody has thought of a proper way to remove settled solids online.
2. Skimmed oil with a water content of 90%, requiring further de-watering.
3. Dosing the wrong chemicals at the wrong place, resulting for instance in oil/water separators clogged with oily solids.
4. Flotation units with bottom scrapers to remove settled solids. Flotation units need to float suspended matter to the surface. It should not settle on the bottom. For that you need a settling separator.
5. Nutshell filters clogged by FeS because of incorrect chemical dosing and poorly performing flotation units upstream.
6. Activated sludge biological treatment plants with post treatment by a flotation unit to remove floating bacteria, which should not have been there in the first place.
7. Multiple stage wastewater treatment plants with activated carbon filters as final treatment step because all previous steps don’t work.
8. And even empty concrete pits that say ‘Flotation unit’ on their nameplate.

The result is a waste of valuable resources and energy. But….. the investment was low. Most problems result from the wrong process design in combination with the selection of unsuitable equipment. Pielkenrood has a different approach. We supply plants that work.