Berkefeld supplies compact water treatment for supplying grain mills in Turkmenistan

3D rendering of Unionmatex grain mills.

Sept. 7, 2009 -- The industrial production of baked goods and pasta requires great amounts of high-grade treated water so that the processes run perfectly and the quality of the end-product is right. In Turkmenistan, Unionmatex Industrieanlagen, a German turnkey supplier of industrial plants, is building several large-scale grain mill plants with a connected big bakery. The company is relying on Berkefeld water treatment technology to manage the water cycle ranging from the production of drinking and process water and purification to the recycling of the wastewater.

"For this project of our customers in Turkmenistan we need a compact water treatment system with robust and proven process technology that can be installed on-site without complications and reliably supplies water in the quality demanded," says Jürgen P. R. Grobe, Managing Director of Unionmatex. Berkefeld, a subsidiary of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, is supplying for the grain mills in Serdar and Ruhabat in each case a river-water treatment plant to provide drinking water for the mill operation as well as process water for a large-scale bakery and the boiler water backfeed. The raw water used stems from the Karakum Canal which, originating in the Himalayas, crosses the Karakum Desert and on whose banks intensive agricultural activity takes place. The water technology was designed and built at the Berkefeld production site in Celle, Germany, fully assembled on basic frameworks and thoroughly tested in advance.

Water treatment - first step.In its first treatment stage, the plant encompasses gravel filtration, UFlex™ ultrafiltration, activated carbon filters, a pure water tank and booster pumps. This process rids the river water of suspended matter, organic and fertiliser residues and produces the required drinking water quality. In Ruhabat, where the grain mill complex is connected to a large-scale bakery, what is demanded for a production line for baked goods and pasta is, among other things, extremely low-salt water in even higher quality with a conductivity of less than 150 µS/cm, and for another production line of even less than 50 µS/cm. To achieve this objective, in the second treatment stage the process steps of softening and reverse osmosis by a Berkefeld maxiRO™ system will be employed.

Water treatment - second step.

The water part of the overall project of Unionmatex encompasses the water cycle right up to wastewater. For the latter, Berkefeld is supplying its tried and tested WWT 9 Biopur type plug-and-play wastewater treatment plant. This robust biological plant copes with wastewater quantities with organic loads corresponding to 50 or 150 inhabitant equivalents. A follow-up Berkal™ high-performance disc filter with fully automatic backwashing cleans the water of further suspended particles. The entire wastewater treatment enables an extremely effective reuse of wastewater, which is then used to water green spaces.

"In this demanding project for Unionmatex we have deployed many elements of our product offer," says Volker Alps, head of Industry Projects and Building Technology at Berkefeld. "Especially successful was the intelligent combination of our process technologies, ranging from drinking and process water to wastewater. Together with our partners at Unionmatex we have supplied a well-rounded concept for the water management of this industrial project."

About Berkefeld
Berkefeld is part of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, a subsidiary of Veolia Water. Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (VWS), is a leading design & build company and a specialized provider of technological solutions in water treatment. With over 8,900 employees in 57 countries, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies recorded revenue of €2.5 billion Euros in 2008.

Veolia Water, the water division of Veolia Environnement, is the world leader in water and wastewater services. Specialized in outsourcing services for municipal authorities, as well as industrial and service companies, Veolia Water serves 139 million people worldwide. With 93,400 employees, its 2008 revenues amounted to €12.6 billion.

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