IWEX 2011 REVIEW
Oh what a sustainable show! V
isitors on the hunt for sustainable solutions for their water and wastewater infrastructure and services will not have been disappointed by this year’s IWEX, part of Sustainabilitylive! The event, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, took place at Birmingham NEC on 24-26 May and is becoming more integrated into the umbrella event each year as the nexus of energy and water become more closely aligned. Sustainabilitylive! and IWEX played host to two research and technology competitions as well as three days of industry seminars and thriving exhibitions on water, energy and environmental technologies.
Thames Water’s Piers Clarke drew a crowd to a vibrant CleanTech Crucible, jointly hosted by WWT’s sister title Sustainable Business and technology support company Isle Utilities. The
Nano research win
The need for energy savings in the water sector makes the meet up in IWEX and Sustainabilitylive! a must for water industry visitors. Natasha Wiseman rounds up the event
winner was Oxford PV, which has introduced a step-change in solar technology with its architectural glass panels. Most of the runners- up had more direct relevance to the water industry and some will be featured in WWT in coming months (see news from Lontra below). Cranfield University, meanwhile, walked away with the IWEX University Challenge, now in its second year (see below). The contest had more entries than ever before and the judges said they were impressed by the high calibre. Exhibitors said they were delighted to be
Drilling & Tapping champs crowned
Winner of the IWEX University Challenge, for Cranfield University, was Bruce Jefferson’s research focusing on the challenge of meeting increasingly stringent wastewater discharge quality standards sustainably. With support from UKWIR and six UK water companies, his team has investigated how a media based on embedded iron nanoparticles could be applied for phosphorus removal. The research has identified that the media was able to meet the potential future discharge consents, irrespective of background conditions, because the nanoparticles form a strong ligand bond with phosphorus, enabling selective removal. Runners- up were John Bridgeman (left) of the University of Birmingham, who is developing novel fluorescence- based instrumentation to assess treated water quality in real-time, and Alan Zhang (right) of WRc, who is investigating non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM ) for electric motors.
38 Water & Wastewater Treatment June 2011
Peter Haslock (left) and Danny Hunt (right) of team Sembcorp Bournemouth Water receive their award for the Institute of Water’s Drilling & Tapping event from David Smoker of Saint Gobain PAM. The pair beat off stiff competition securing the win with a time of 2mins 32secs and will go on to represent the UK at the American Water Works Association Exhibition, Dallas.
Energy saving compressor backed
Severn Trent Water (STW) has taken a leading role in developing the Blade Compressor, a novel technology which reduces energy spend on wastewater aeration by 20%. The technology was profiled at the CleanTech Crucible competition during IWEX
and Sustainabilitylive.
Lontra development engineer Phil Wilding with Blade Compressor prototype
In August the project secured a grant of £390,000 from the Carbon Trust in recognition of the energy saving potential, and the technology is being developed for trial on a STW site in Worcester. nnn
Safer connections launched
French company Marechal Electric introduced its watertight connectors, for applications requiring signal and control contacts, at IWEX 2011. The technology is an effective alternative to both hard-wired equipment and pin/sleeve type contacts and is ideal for pump applications in the water industry.
The decontactor is a flexible method of connecting and disconnecting electrical equipment safely, at the press of a latch. The PNC series combines contacts for electrical power and control signals in a single housing. The multi-contact connectors are sealed to IP66/IP67, as standard. nnn
speaking to the right people. Rotem Shemesh from Israeli water networks technology company TaKaDu said that the show was well organised and that she was seeing relevant visitors. While Tom Young of Automated Water & Effluent said the show had proved to be “very fortuitous” with an impressive number of relevant visitors to the company’s stand. nnn
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