Sacyr Concessions Water is improving the efficiency and sustainability of the Alicante I and II desalinations plants which the company operates and maintains to supply the Mancomunidad de los Canales del Taibilla (MCT).
These improvements promote the good functioning of the plants, their efficiency, and their operativity. These are based on the pile work of ultrafiltration with pretreated recycled membranes, piling of the different filtration systems, and using underwater drones to inspect catchments and other marine works.
Sacyr Concessions Water has developed these kinds of projects thanks to MCT and its commitment to sustainability and innovation.
The pile work of pretreatment systems includes using different filtration mediums and membranes. This process makes it unique worldwide, and it complements previous MCT works with several filtering mediums, such as filtralite.
Sacyr promotes the transformation of out-of-use membranes to turn them into microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes once their life cycle is over.
Among the potential applications of these recycled membranes, we must emphasize the pretreatment of membranes for reverse osmosis (whether for sea or salty water). These plants in Alicante are favorable for experimentation due to the quality of the water from seawater.
To conduct this research line, in November 2020, Sacyr Water installed a pilot UF plant with recycled membranes, which was developed within the framework of the Life Transfomem and LIFE Deseacrop projects. The pilot plant has been recently modified and automated for its continual self-operating use, thus minimizing personnel dedication.
Pilot plants work 24-hours a day and are brine-washed daily. Plants work at different filtration conditions; we take water samples before and after treatment to analyze water quality parameters and compare them to the results obtained using natural filtration.
With this process, Sacyr Water has found a specific filter (P-840) that reduces turbidity more efficiently.
Underwater drone for inspection
Once a year, we must inspect underwater filtration grids and replace them. To that end, Sacyr Concessions Water inspects the three seawater catchment towers.
