WATER & WASTEWATER TREATMENT CHEMICALS
WORLD MARKET
UPDATE
June 2010
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Matthew Knight Appointed President of Dorf Ketal Chemicals (North America)
Water World Summarizes World Chemical Demand
Bright Outlook Forecast for Water Treatment Market
Arch Chemicals Expands Agreement with Odyssey Logistics & Technology
Eka Chemicals Increased Prices for Paper Chemicals in Europe
Chlorine Production for Water Disinfection and Other Purposes
Chemical Dispersant Used on Gulf Oil Spill Made Public
Siemens to Expand its Water Treatment Services Business in Asia
Water Treatment Chemicals Plant Opens
Sembcorp to Build S$40 Million Wastewater Treatment Facility in Jurong Island
Professional Water Technologies Develops Sodium Benzoate-Infused Dendrimer Antiscalant
South Koreans Tour Yucaipa Water Treatment Plant
UV Water Treatment Minimizes Chemicals
Novel Alternative to Chemical Water Treatment
The Problem with Chemicals and Water Treatment
Cavitation and the CaviGulator
More Chemical-Free Water Treatment
Many projects are detailed in monthly updates under Industry Analysis in this Report’s Chapters. Click on the links below to view information on these projects.
LNG
METALWORKING
MINING
OIL & GAS
PHARMACEUTICAL / BIOTECH
PULP & PAPER
REFINERIES
SEMICONDUCTOR
POWER
Huge pump expenditures are forecast for flue gas desulfurization systems in the U.S. and China. The specific reports are available separately in Fossil and Nuclear Power Generation World Analysis and Forecast and in Utility Environmental Upgrade Tracking System. CLICK HERE to view information on these projects.
Dorf Ketal Chemicals Pvt. Ltd., India's leading manufacturer of research based specialty chemicals and a leading global provider of refinery process chemicals and specialty catalysts for production of high performance industrial polymers, announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Matthew H. Knight as President and Chief Executive Officer of its US subsidiaries, Dorf Ketal Chemicals LLC, and Dorf Ketal Speciality Catalysts, LLC.
Prior to joining Dorf Ketal, Mr. Knight was with Siemens Water Technology where he served as the Global Vice President for Sales and Marketing. Mr. Knight is the former President and CEO of Strategic Diagnostics Inc. (SDIX), a biotechnology company providing of antibody technologies to the life sciences markets, and industrial analytics for the water, environmental and food safety markets. Mr. Knight began his specialty chemical career with Nalco Chemical in 1980 advancing through a series of sales and marketing management positions. In 1996, Mr. Knight became a General Manager for Nalco Europe, and subsequently General Manager of the Company's Industrial Water Treatment Group in North America. In 2000, he was elected Group Vice President and President of the Company's Industrial Division. Mr. Knight has a BA in Chemistry from Miami University of Ohio and is a graduate of the Tuck Executive Program at Dartmouth College.
According to industry market studies, utilities spend more than $4 billion a year on water treatment chemicals alone. Less than one-twentieth that amount is invested in source water protection and pollution prevention.
BWA Water Additives president Paul Turgeon sees continuing strength in the water treatment market and tightness in acrylic acid feedstock. The World’s growing need for clean, potable water is driving demand for water treatment chemicals. And despite the recent financial turmoil, it looks like clear sailing for the market, according to the head of global producer BWA Water Additives.
"We see consistent growing demand for potable water worldwide. We expect the continuing construction of water desalination plants to reestablish the pre-recession 15% growth rates to this market segment," says President Paul Turgeon in an interview with ICIS. "We've had a strong start to this year and expect this to continue, despite the European debt crisis. Our market is fairly shock resilient."
The desalination water-treatment business accounted for 40% of BWA's sales of about $130m (€96.2m) in 2009, with the industrial side accounting for 60%. The company's geographic mix is diverse, with around one-third of sales in the Americas, one-third in the Middle East, and the rest split between Europe and Asia.
In membrane desalination, seawater is pushed through membranes to remove salt and impurities. BWA markets acrylic acid (AA) and maleic acid-based antiscalants used in reverse-osmosis membrane and thermal desalination, as well as industrial water treatment. AA-based antiscalants account for 40-50% of its business. Antiscalants prevent the formation of solid deposits known as scale, which can inhibit operations.
The AA market is still very tight, according to Turgeon. "Things have not loosened up, but with our supply positions nailed down, there has been no impact on our ability to supply customers," he says. "However, if we were taking on significant new business, we'd have to review our supply chain capability in order to promise supply."
The U.S. market has been mired in supply constraints. June contract prices for U.S. glacial AA were $1.14-1.19/lb - up from $0.72-$0.77/lb at the beginning of the year.
U.S. major Dow Chemical declared force majeure at its 580,000 tonne/year acrylates plant in Deer Park, Texas, on March 10 because of a mechanical failure. Dow says the plant is now running at "planned capacities." American Acryl had kept its 140,000 tonne/year plant shut since December 2009, following an explosion, but operations are expected to resume shortly, according to market sources.
French producer Arkema, meanwhile, resumed shipments of AA and acrylate esters from its 275,000 tonne/year facility in Carling, France on May 11. Force majeure was declared on the plant in April.
In Asia, spot prices for acrylates hit 15-year highs in late May, with the U.S. and European markets aggressively competing for supply from Asia. BWA is comfortable with its diversified supply of AA worldwide, says Turgeon. The firm toll manufactures its water treatment products, but closely oversees sourcing raw materials. It aims to "launch new products that have similar severe service capabilities as current products but with an improved environmental profile."
While the water desalination market is performing strongly, things are more tepid on the industrial water treatment side. "Market conditions are pretty flat as the industry has dealt with industrial plant closures in the U.S. and Europe. But we have performed better than most because of the success of our new products," Turgeon says.
He estimates single-digit sales growth in 2010 for the industrial water treatment side of BWA. Customers are water service firms, which sell to end-market customers such as chemical, pharmaceutical and pulp and paper plants, as well as large institutional plants.
The industrial water treatment business is being driven by the increasing trend towards using less water and energy, Turgeon says. "Water reuse leads to challenging water conditions that can only be addressed by high-performance specialty additives."
Odyssey Logistics & Technology Corporation (OL&T), a global logistics and transportation service provider for the chemical and process industries, announced today that Arch Chemicals, Inc. has expanded its service agreement with OL&T to include its European operations covering eastern and western Europe, the Middle East and Africa. OL&T will continue to provide managed logistics services for Arch Chemicals in the U.S. for all modes of commercial transportation.
Headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., Arch Chemicals, Inc. is a global Biocides company with approximately $1.4 billion in annual sales. Arch and its subsidiaries provide innovative, chemistry-based solutions to selectively destroy and control the growth of harmful microbes. The Company's focus is in water treatment, hair and skin care products, wood treatment, preservation and protection applications such as for paints and building products, and health and hygiene applications.
Eka Chemicals increased prices across its entire European Paper Chemicals product range, with immediate effect as of March 1, 2010, in order to begin to offset higher costs, company said in a statement received by Lesprom Network.
“This price adjustment is necessary to maintain a long term sustainable business model”, says Jay Hunsberger, European Marketing Director at Eka Chemicals.
The recent increases in the cost of basic raw materials, energy and transportation have impacted Eka Chemicals’ cost structure dramatically. Continual efforts to streamline the operations and optimize cost structure are being significantly outpaced by these increases, company said.
Eka Chemicals is a business unit within AkzoNobel. Eka Chemicals is a leading supplier of bleaching chemicals, paper chemicals and systems to the pulp and paper industry throughout the world, and supplies certain special chemicals to the pharmaceuticals industry, water treatment, the electronics industry etc.
Total global chlorine production = 55,551,000 tonnes
Total U.S. chlorine production = 11,956,000 tonnes
Total U.S. consumption for water treatment = 615,000 tonnes
Total European Community chlorine production = 10,870 tonnes
Total European Community consumption for water treatment = 270,000 tonnes
The EPA released the constituent chemicals of the oil dispersant being used in huge quantities in the Gulf of Mexico to the surprise of the manufacturer, and without permission, the company said today.
“We agreed that they (the EPA) could share it with other government agencies,” said Charlie Pajor, a spokesman for the firm, Nalco, whose Corexit dispersant is being used in the Gulf. More than 1 million gallons have been dumped on the oil so far.
“We were surprised it showed up on the Web site yesterday,” Pajor said.
The EPA had been keeping the specific chemical ingredients secret, since Nalco deemed it confidential business information and the release of such data is generally illegal.
The EPA, however, says they had permission.
“EPA demanded that dispersant manufacturers make confidential business information (CBI) public. Due to EPA’s efforts, NALCO agreed to allow more of that CBI to be made public,” the agency said in a statement. “EPA has posted on its Web site a list of the chemical components in two of NALCO’s dispersant products- Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 (Corexit 9527 is no longer in use in the Gulf). This was possible because NALCO waived their CBI claim to this combined list. Although, this information does not include the formulation of the dispersant, it is helpful in EPA’s air, water, and sediment monitoring efforts.”
We don’t know where the wires are crossed, but the EPA claimed last night — after Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand crowed over getting the data made public— that it had actually been made public last week, and that the senator was mistaken.
Not so much, the agency now admits.
The information may have been posted as early as last Friday, but that still is a day after Gillibrand wrote to the EPA.
Nalco also has now posted the information on its Web site, noting that it may help responders make sure they deal with the product properly, which was what Gillibrand had been hoping for.
Pajor said they had not yet considered what to do should someone try to copy it.
Siemens Water Technologies will expand its water treatment services and products business in Southeast Asia. The expansion will focus on aftermarket services and parts for the power, chemical processing, life sciences, and food industries, in addition to, launching the mobile water treatment business into the region. This is the second major expansion of the company's global services organization in the last two years. In November 2008, the company established a mobile water treatment hub in the Middle East.
"Siemens Water Technologies views the Asia Pacific region as a critical part of its future growth strategy," said Chuck Gordon, president and CEO of Siemens Water Technologies, "The expansion of our services organization in the region is a natural extension of our local presence and business network."
As part of the Southeast Asia regional expansion, service branches have been located in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines, and India. The headquarters' branch is located in the Tuas District of Singapore. The branch is near one of Singapore's bridge connections to Malaysia, ensuring Siemens service technicians are close to the regional customer base. The company will expand its service line offering for aftermarket services and parts, including ion exchange resin, membranes, and spare parts for water treatment systems. Trained and certified water technicians ensure that water treatment systems are providing the water quality and quantity required.
In addition, the company has established its mobile water treatment solutions in the region. The mobile units are self-contained treatment plants housed in international-standard ISO containers.
All of the necessary interconnecting piping, power distribution, and instrumentation are complete within the container, including PLC controls for fully automatic operations. Chemical feed systems are integrated in the container, when required. This configuration allows Siemens to adapt fully integrated treatment systems into transportable containers built to withstand rigorous use and transportation. Once on site, a single-point connection for water inlet and outlet and a single-point connection for the power supply are all that is required.
Siemens service technicians install and start up the mobile units. Mobile water treatment solutions are often used to assist industrial customers during plant start up and maintenance outages, when the plant's water treatment system is unavailable or cannot meet the water production requirements. There are a wide range of mobile water treatment solutions available including filtration, sodium softening, reverse osmosis and high purity water production using ion exchange and continuous deionization.
In March 2008, the company acquired the former Chemitreat Group, which added strategic water treatment technologies and services in the region with locations in Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and China.
Lautan Luas Viet Nam Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Lautan Luas Singapore Pte Ltd, yesterday launched a factory to manufacture water treatment additives in southern Binh Duong Province's Nam Tan Uyen Industrial Zone.
With registered investment capital of US$12 million, the 5-ha factory will have 30,000 tonnes per year capacity and produce additives for Viet Nam's water industry. It will also export to countries including Canada and the Philippines, Naryanton Lie, the company's sale manager, said. The company plans to expand the factory to manufacture industrial application additives, Lie added.
This is the company's first factory in Viet Nam, bringing the total to 25, he said.
Conglomerate Sembcorp Industries said on Tuesday that it is building a S$40 million wastewater treatment facility in Jurong Island. Construction of the facility is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2012. Through the new facility, Sembcorp's utilities business will provide industrial wastewater treatment services to German specialty chemicals firm, LANXESS.
The German firm is Sembcorp's first wastewater treatment customer in the new Tembusu district of the Jurong Island petrochemical cluster. The new facility will more than double Sembcorp's current industrial wastewater treatment capacity on Jurong Island. It is expected to have an initial total capacity of 9,600 cubic metres per day. Sembcorp said the new plant will be sufficient to serve LANXESS as well as other customers. It added that it is a well-established provider of third party outsourced utilities in the Sakra and Seraya districts of Jurong Island.
The company has supplied a full range of energy, water and on-site logistics and services to chemical and petrochemical manufacturers on the island
The contract with LANXESS is not expected to have a material impact on Sembcorp's earnings for the current financial year.
Gulf Resources, Inc. (Nasdaq: GFRE) ("Gulf Resources" or the "Company"), a leading manufacturer of bromine, crude salt and specialty chemical products in China, today announced that the Company commenced the construction of the new chemical additives production line for wastewater treatment.
The Company's board of directors approved the construction of the new chemical additives line and expects it to start production in July of 2010 with chemical additives production capacity of 3,000 metric tons per year. The new production line will be located in the Company's Yuxing Chemical Plant and the Company estimates that it will contribute approximately $9 to $10 million in revenues with an estimated gross profit margin over 40% in the first year of operation. The capital expenditure for the new production line is expected to be approximately $8 to $10 million. The Company expects to fund the new production line with cash from operations.
The market capacity for waste water treatment additives in China was about 50,000 metric tons in 2009, and is expected to increase at an annual rate of about 15% over the next few years due to the Chinese government's focus on environmental protection and efforts to increase the amount of safe drinking water. China's Ministry of Environmental Protection recently announced plans to invest RMB 90 billion ($13.2 billion) to construct sewage treatment systems aimed at keeping drinking water safe. Pricing for chemical additives has been rising in recent months due to increased demand, reaching $21,000 per metric ton in the fourth quarter of 2009.
"China's planned investment in waste water treatment systems over the next few years will accelerate demand for chemical additives used in the treatment of waste water," said Mr. Xiaobin Liu, Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Resources. "Bromine is one of the main ingredients used in waste water treatment chemical additives. As one of China's largest bromine producers, Gulf Resources is ideally positioned to capture growing demand for this value added product. We expect our new production line will make a significant contribution to revenue and profit starting in the second half of 2010. The new production line is an important ingredient of our long term strategy."
H2O Innovation Inc. a complete water treatment solutions company providing custom designed water treatment systems along with operating and maintenance solutions, announces that its California business unit Professional Water Technologies ("PWT") has developed a new method of infusing its dendrimer antiscalant technology with sodium benzoate, a bacteriostatic and fungistatic preservative widely used in food and beverage applications.
"By incorporating sodium benzoate into the synthesis procedure of our dendrimers, we significantly improve the shelf-life of our products while controlling biological growth in pretreatment tanks, associated equipment and the membrane system itself," says Stephen Dunham, PWT's founder and Vice-President of After-Market Consumables. "Although we have long used sodium benzoate in our standard antiscalants, incorporating it into our 11X super-concentrated antiscalants has been a challenge until now. This new infusion process represents an exciting new development for users of our super-concentrated chemical pretreatment technology."
While standard dilutions of SpectraGuard and Titan ASD 200 have traditionally included the sodium benzoate additive, the super-concentrate antiscalants SpectraGuard SC and Titan ASD 200 SC are now newly sodium benzoate-infused during synthesis. "This new infusion has no effect on dosages, usability, or our ANSI/NSF Standard 60 approval for drinking water," says David Russell, PWT's Director of Sales and Business Development. "It does, however, eliminate the need for our customers to add sodium benzoate into their day tanks when diluting our super-concentrates. Our products have never been easier to use."
Developed for reverse osmosis and membrane filtration markets, PWT's super-concentrated antiscalants are eleven times more concentrated than standard antiscalants, reducing shipping/handling by 90% and eliminating drum disposal requirements. The products are based on PWT's patent-pending dendrimer technology. They are phosphate-free and environmentally friendly. More information regarding PWT's exclusive line of dendrimer-based super-concentrated antiscalants can be found on www.pwtchemicals.com.
About two dozen water treatment plant operators from South Korea on Tuesday toured a Yucaipa facility that features water disinfecting technologies that avoid chemicals.
The group learned about microfiltration and nanofiltration used by Yucaipa Valley Water District, General Manager Joe Zoba said. They also are visiting Hoover Dam and a treatment facility operated by Orange County Water District.
Yucaipa is one of the first districts in the nation to feature both microfiltration and nanofiltration, which disinfect water without the chemicals typically used in conventional water treatment facilities, Zoba said.
An advanced ultra-violet form of water treatment technology could be trialed in Australia's harsh climate, after being successfully used on a semi-arid Caribbean island, writes Peter Mills.Advanced ultra-violet (UV) water treatment technology being introduced to Australia by CST Wastewater Solutions has demonstrated its potential for applications here after being installed on a semi-arid Caribbean island.
Ten of Berson’s InLine UV disinfection systems – distributed in Australia by CST – were installed on the island of Aruba, where eight systems are used to disinfect drinking water and two are used to treat greywater prior to discharge. The island opted for UV instead of chlorine as part of its ‘non-chemical’ approach to water treatment, says CST Wastewater Solutions managing director, Michael Bambridge.
Five of the Berson UV units are installed at the Balashi water treatment plant, the site of gold mill ruins near Aruba’s capital, Oranjestad. Operated by W.E.B. Aruba N.V., which supplies drinking water and electricity to the island’s residents and businesses, Balashi also houses the world’s second largest desalination plant. Because Aruba has a semi-arid climate, desalination is necessary to supply its growing population with much-needed water.
Following the desalination process, the water passes through the UV systems before being transported to seven storage tanks situated at elevated locations around the island. The UV units, which are installed outdoors and controlled by DGtronic microprocessors, each disinfect 400m3 of water per hour, rising to 600m3/h during peak flow conditions.
No chlorine is used at any stage of the water treatment process. Chlorine was originally considered as an alternative to UV but was rejected after concerns over costs and safety. W.E.B. Aruba also has an anti-chemical policy.
Two of the seven storage tanks situated around the island are also fitted with Berson’s InLine UV systems, providing an additional disinfection step prior to distribution. It is expected that all the tanks will eventually be fitted with UV. One of the storage tanks is situated in the harbour and supplies cruise ships with UV-treated drinking water.
In addition to disinfecting drinking water, two Berson UV systems are also used to treat greywater. One unit is installed at each of the island’s two wastewater treatment plants and the treated greywater is used to irrigate the island’s two golf courses. The Dr Horacio Hospital on the island also uses UV technology.
Berson’s customer service manager Danny van Kuringen says there is a lot of interest in Berson’s UV systems on the island, especially from businesses wanting to use greywater for hosing down buildings. “It is very dusty on Aruba, so keeping the outside of buildings clean is a real concern for many companies. We have also recently supplied one of our new InLine+ UV systems to disinfect drinking water for the airport.”
Berson’s compact InLine medium pressure UV systems use MultiWave lamps, which emit a wide spectrum of UV wavelengths with a very high energy output, causing the total and permanent deactivation of micro-organisms. The small size of the lamps means that they are positioned perpendicularly to the flow of liquid, increasing disinfection efficiency and reducing the overall size of the disinfection unit.
Berson's InLine+ medium pressure closed vessel UV systems recently became the first in the world to gain formal approval for wastewater re-use applications. They underwent extensive third party testing by Carollo Engineers in the Unites States of America before being formally approved for post-filtration and reverse osmosis applications by the California Department of Public Health (Title-22 validation).
The systems are now validated for wastewater re-use applications in accordance with AwwaRF/NWRI guidelines, which are internationally respected and some of the toughest in the world, says Bambridge. The guidelines are also the only ones offering guidelines on sewage treatment, which is a key factor in Australia.
“The Berson technology used on Aruba clearly has potential in Australia as well, because we not only have the same pressures on water in semi-arid areas, but also are looking increasingly to desalination as an alternative source of water supply,” said Bambridge.
Headquartered in the Netherlands, Berson specialises in providing UV disinfection systems for municipal water and wastewater treatment applications. Its InLine+ range of closed-vessel UV disinfection systems is capable of treating water and wastewater flows as high as 5000 m3/hour. The InLine+ has a unique design where the UV lamps are angled at 90o to the water flow – this not only means a more effective distribution of UV light to the passing fluid, it also means a much smaller footprint, allowing easy installation and servicing, CST says.
Chemical treatment is becoming a less desirable way to provide safe drinking water, and water professionals have been searching for a less expensive, more reliable and more sustainable method of killing pathogens. Cavitation Technologies, Inc. has come up with one solution. The company’s new process uses mechanical and electrical systems to blow the little bugs to smithereens.
The company’s CaviGulation reactor sounds like a piece of equipment that would be at home in Frankenstein’s lab. It delivers up a complex set of reactions based on kinetic energy, chemical, electro-chemical, and hydrodynamic principles. The result: a water disinfection process that’s 1,000 times more effective than conventional systems.
Chlorine and ozone have been used as disinfectants for many years, but they are not entirely up to conforming with strict new water quality regulations. Pathogens like lamblii and cryptosporidium can be resistant, for example. In addition, no matter how effective they are, chemicals are commodities that are subject to market forces, and those forces came into play with a vengeance in the last decade, when a commodities boom lead to crippling price spikes and shortages. Water utilities scrambled for supplies and even rich nations were affected. The lesson was learned: public water treatment needs more reliability and predictability than the chemical market can offer.
Because it uses a mechanical process, the CaviGulator is not without issues, primarily the problem of fuel supply. In combination with solar energy or other sustainable power sources, the system has clear advantages over chemical treatment. For one thing, it practically erases the carbon footprint involved in manufacturing, transporting and administering chemicals. The CaviGulator acts by creating a tremendous force consisting of pressure, vacuum, kinetic impact, electrical field, and sonic waves, along with hydrodynamic cavitation (the formation of vapor bubbles leading to shock waves). As water passes through chambers in the reactor, microorganisms are literally shattered into pieces.
Cavitatition Technologies joins a growing list of water treatment processes that are giving chemicals the heave ho. Ultraviolet disinfection has been growing in use, and there is even a low-tech version that can disinfect water in a used soda bottle. High tech nanomembranes and sonic devices are two other promising technologies that are coming into play.
McIlvaine Company,
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061;
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