On March 17th we received at CATABB the visit of Iliane Rafaniello and Thomas Schäfer from SURPHASE, Smart Water Engineering together with Nagore Tellado, Director of Business Relations of the UPV.

Membrane desalination is an efficient process that guarantees the supply of drinking water globally. However, membranes accumulate matter on their surface generating the problem known as “fouling”. Fouling requires stopping the process in order to clean the membranes using, in most cases, aggressive products. SURPHASE offers a system for early detection of membrane fouling with a sensitivity that exceeds conventional technologies by three orders of magnitude. SURPHASE’s early detection avoids reaching the irreversible fouling point and allows the membrane replacement rate to be maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s warranty.

The visit to the facility served to know first hand the facilities, which have several treatment technologies for water purification, as well as the origin and dynamics of the research projects carried out at CATABB. In fact, in previous projects carried out at CATABB, the incidence of a membrane filtration stage in the removal of certain contaminants of emerging concern has been detected.

Within CATABB’s collaboration strategy, challenges of interest to both parties have been discussed, with the aim of being able to concretize them in the future through the development of a project at CATABB.