Acquisition of advanced ZeeWeed membrane technology expands GE's offering of complete solutions for water and wastewater treatment and water reuse
For Immediate Release:
TREVOSE, PA. (November 27, 2006) --- Building on its recent acquisition of ZENON Environmental Inc., GE Water & Process Technologies, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is bringing one of the most comprehensive portfolios of advanced water and wastewater treatment and water reuse technologies to the power industry. GE will exhibit its latest offering at POWER-GEN International, November 28-30, 2006 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.
"ZENON brings more than 25 years of experience in developing, designing, and servicing advanced membrane systems for hundreds of industrial and municipal applications," said Jeff Garwood, President and CEO of GE Water & Process Technologies. "ZENON technology expands GE's ability to offer a broader range of ecomagination products to the power industry---products that address our most pressing environmental needs, such as water scarcity and declining water quality, while improving efficiency, and reducing operating costs."
Reinforced ZeeWeed UF membranes are ideal to provide high quality feedwater to reverse osmosis systems that supply pure water to critical power plant components such as boilers, cooling towers, and flue gas desulphurization systems. ZeeWeed pretreatment can protect valuable RO membranes from particulate or biological fouling with a consistent supply of RO feed water that has less than 0.1 NTU and a low silt density index (SDI), typically less than 2.5, often less than 1.5. RO systems benefit from higher recovery rates, lower energy usage, reduced cleaning requirements, extended membrane life, and higher quality product water. Additionally, a ZeeWeed pretreatment system offers a significantly smaller process footprint than a conventional system since fewer process steps are required.
Power producers in water scarce regions can create new, sustainable sources of drought-free, low-cost water by using ZeeWeed membranes for tertiary treatment of secondary effluent from municipal wastewater treatment plants. By reusing wastewater in a progressive, beneficial manner, power producers can ensure an adequate supply of high quality water for current or expanding operations while reducing demand on municipal potable water supplies.
ZENON also enhances GE's offering of advanced technologies with ABMet, a new biological metals removal process that uses naturally occurring, non-pathogenic bacteria to remove heavy metals such as selenium, mercury, arsenic, lead, copper, chromium, and others from wastewater produced by flue gas desulphurization systems. The process produces far less sludge than conventional physical-chemical processes and achieves a greater reduction of toxic metals from the waste stream---typically producing treated effluent with less than 0.01 ppm selenium, less than 150 ppt mercury, less than 10 ppb arsenic and less than 10 ppm total nitrogen.
ZENON ultra filtration membranes and ABMet technology join the core of GE's offerings for the power industry, which also include reverse osmosis systems, electrodialysis reversal systems, a broad range of treatment chemicals, monitoring equipment, and analytical services. Together with ZENON, GE is the industry's largest single-source supplier of complete custom engineered, packaged plant, and mobile water and wastewater treatment solutions for the power industry.
About GE Water & Process Technologies
GE Water & Process Technologies, a unit of General Electric Company, is solving some of the world's most pressing water challenges by providing industrial, agricultural and potable water, while lessening our dependence on fresh water sources. Technologies to accomplish this include desalination, advanced membrane, separation solutions, and water reuse and wastewater management and process technologies. GE delivers value to customers by improving performance and product quality, reducing operating costs and extending equipment life. For more information on GE Water & Process Technologies, visit www.gewater.com.
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Tony Kobilnyk
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