InOpSys

Mobile, modular customised water purification

Both the pharmaceutical and chemical industries are increasingly trying to use renewable raw materials in their production processes. The switch from petroleum to biomaterials requires not only new conversion processes, but also more flexible, modular and even mobile plants for reaction and separation.

InOpSys responds to this need. The company builds mobile and modular wastewater treatment plants (plants-on-a-truck) to treat toxic wastewater at pharmaceutical and chemical companies. They place the installation on site at the customer's premises to purify by-product streams. From these streams, which would otherwise be destroyed, InOpSys extracts as many raw materials as possible that the customer or another buyer can reuse.

With the mobile plants, InOpSys aims to process by-product streams as close as possible to the production process. As it is no longer necessary to have all flows converge in a common waste tank and then transport and process them centrally, the customer saves a lot of investment and (hazardous) transport.

InOpSys builds the plants modularly, so they can be adapted to the customer's needs. Thus, the purification plants can be used to valorise various by-product streams tailored to the customer's needs.

Recently, the PFAS problem in Antwerp received a lot of media attention. The technique applied so far to remove PFAS from water is not sufficient, and this while the true extent of the problem is becoming increasingly clear. Recently, InOpSys succeeded in using a new technique to purify even the most difficult-to-remove PFAS from water. After months of lab research, the results of the first tests at the BlueChem lab are promising. The pilot plant at Lantis' Oosterweel yard will be so for scaling up the system.

The adsorbent material can also be reused, limiting the amount of waste from this system. Because the plant itself is compact, less material is needed and a higher concentration of PFAS can be removed, the costs remain lower than with traditional techniques.

InOpSys can count on the financial support of the City of Antwerp. The InOpSys laboratories are located in BlueChem, an initiative of essencia (the chemistry and life sciences sector federation) in collaboration with the city of Antwerp, POM Antwerp and VITO.