N.A. Water Systems Earns Patent for AMDRO Process
N.A. Water Systems, a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (VWS) company, has received a patent for its AMDRO™ technology, a reverse osmosis (RO) process for treatment of acidic wastewater.
This process is particularly applicable to the mining and fertilizer production industries. In mining, AMDRO can be used to clean up acid mine drainage for discharge. For the fertilizer industry, it can be applied not only to clean up phosphate pond water for discharge but also to recover phosphoric acid for use in the production process. The process reduces the cost for water treatment chemicals and sludge disposal as compared to the conventional approach.
The patented process includes VWS’ proprietary ACTIFLO® clarification technology and media filtration for pretreatment, followed by a double-pass RO and ion exchange polishing to produce a treated water stream suitable for discharge and reuse. The key to the technology is the operation of the pretreatment and the first-pass reverse osmosis process under acidic conditions to inhibit the precipitation of scale-forming compounds. The technology will be introduced at the Canadian Institute of Mining Conference and Exposition in Toronto, Canada, May 10–13.