Reclaiming waste – Aqwise is at the forefront of developing innovative wastewater treatment solutions for the industrial and municipal markets. The Company’s proprietary solutions provide a natural, chemical-free process for increasing oxygen transfer and nutrient removal capacity in wastewater treatment plants, enabling the release of cleaner, near-drinkable wastewater into the environment for safe reuse.

Fishing for herring: Aqwise was chosen as one of the top 100 European finalists of the reputable Red Herring 100 Award in 2008. Aqwise was the only water technology company that year to be fished out of a sea of innovative technology enterprises and selected as a finalist.

Moving fast: Aqwise was recently named among Deloitte’s EMEA Technology Fast 500 list and the Israeli Fast 50 winners for 2008 and was the lone water technology company selection. The objective rankings are determined by percentage revenue growth over the last five years.

TLV Insider conducted an interview with Udi Leshem, VP Strategy and Business Development at Aqwise, to gain some insight into the current state of wastewater purification and management in the world:

What are some of the more compelling challenges faced by municipalities and industry in managing their wastewater?

The need to cope more effectively with aging and outdated infrastructures is definitely one of the more serious issues that public utilities and industrialists face today. The growing global population drives a never ending demand for more water, and simultaneously we see increasingly stringent regulatory guidelines that are emerging everywhere. The clean water act of the 1970’s in the US and the creation of the federally mandated EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) set the stage for heightened awareness of the need to treat wastewater with greater care and basically transformed the manner in which we relate to wastewater management. It created a new benchmark of standardization and placed water front and center as an integral part of national agendas in countries all over the world.

Can you discuss some of the regulatory trends affecting the wastewater treatment sector?

Traditionally, treating wastewater used to focus exclusively on the removal of solids. Once wastewater was as devoid of solid materials as possible it was released into our seas, riverbeds and streams. Today, carbon-based organic waste and nutrients – nitrates and phosphorous – have been added into the mix, reflecting a demand to convert wastewater into as pure a substance as possible that won’t adversely affect the ecosystems into which it is discharged. This places municipalities and industry in the position of having to solve multiple solid and biological waste removal challenges and enhance the utilization of their existing facilities without replacing all of their infrastructures.

Do regulatory policies vary clearly between Western and developing countries and are there any efforts at more global standardization?

Developing countries need sustainable systems that are robust and endure over time. They don’t have the CAPEX budgets to invest every few years in serious upgrades or new infrastructure. So it’s imperative to provide them with cost-efficient bio treatment solutions that can be implemented simply and effectively into their existing systems. Regulatory standards are always based on the best-available technology in the market, with state-of-the-art systems typically being implemented in Western countries first before they reach other locales. Standardization is also impacted by the economics and investment capital available in each region. You simply can’t implement the same standards in developing countries.

Wastewater management in the minds of most people is associated with chemical treatment and the threat of toxicity. Can we really look forward to cleaner discharges into the world’s rivers and streams?

I think we can look forward to a genuine transformation in wastewater. The processes we use are all based on naturally occurring phenomenon, courtesy of the micro-organisms we introduce into the wastewater bio reactors that do the purification work. There are no chemicals or genetic engineering processes involved. Our bio-mass carriers, which house the organisms, are all constructed from recycled plastic. Using our systems enables the discharge of cleaner water into the environment on a near drinking water level. Ultimately, the task falls to regulators and environmental protection agencies to ensure that this is enforced, but the technology is definitely there. Public education is also a factor as there are clear limits to what people will perceive as being acceptable usage of wastewater.

To what extent does Aqwise radically depart from other solutions in the innovative wastewater treatment arena?

Aqwise is definitely at the forefront of innovation in biological wastewater treatment methods. Most solutions providers in this field are local companies addressing local challenges. Other than Veolia, which is the largest wastewater treatment provider in the world, Aqwise is the only other vendor that works significantly on a global scale. We have basically taken two pre-existing solutions in bio-mass reactors – attached growth and suspended growth – and created a highly efficient hybrid model the AGAR® (Attached Growth Airlift Reactor) system that is widely regarded as the next generation in facilitating cleaner water discharges into the environment. It’s significant for both municipal and industrial markets because it increases the capacity and efficiency of existing wastewater treatment plants and minimizes the need for new deployments. So we have really been able to come up with a solution that is both cutting edge and economically viable for a wide range of markets and needs.

To Aqwise Website