WATER SYSTEMS
specifications to meet operational requirements and safety while also reducing energy consumption. This should include recommendations on the best equipment options. SUEZ’s expertise, and its products, help NHS hospitals and other healthcare premises improve the sustainability and efficiency of their industrial and domestic water systems – from advanced water purification systems for applications such as low-volume laboratory units, to high-flow ring-main solutions for sterile services, decontamination, and renal dialysis departments. For example, SUEZ can specify its Purite water purification units with a standby option that can make significant energy savings. In situations where purified water may not be dispensed for a period of several hours or more, it makes sense to put the unit on standby, and save both electricity and water. Systems should not, however, be entirely idle in this ‘sleep’ mode, as some circulation is needed to discourage microbiological activity. Purite systems therefore balance energy efficiency with safety via a sleep cycle that involves a 10- minute flushing programme every two hours. This intelligent standby option can automatically impose the sleep cycle at any time that a set period has elapsed without water being dispensed.
Writing the necessary programme This may seem like an obvious feature for all manufacturers to provide, but not all do. Such features require the expertise to write the necessary programme, and to recode whenever changes in software become necessary, it is a costly service to buy in, so only expert manufacturers such as SUEZ, with ‘in-house’ code writing
Reject water can be used in the boilerhouse, where it is processed into steam.
specialists and a commitment to keeping machine software up to date, will consider it. Advances such as the intelligent standby mode make a significant impact on energy consumption, and are another step towards a Net Zero NHS. Another enhancement that can maintain safety while also reducing energy consumption is a double-pass reverse osmosis system containing two processing units, so that permeate water from the first stage is fed into a second. By processing the water twice, users can obtain a greater level of purity while also increasing efficiency because the concentrate (or reject) water from the first stage is used to feed the second stage. Double-pass systems can also reduce or increase the concentrate flow
from the first stage, depending upon the current level of permeate consumption, and even recirculate concentrate from the second stage to the break tank between the two units so it can be used to feed the second unit again.
Double-pass RO system In hospitals, the ultra-pure water that is produced by a double-pass reverse osmosis system can significantly enhance the performance of kidney dialysis machines, where a high level of water purity is critical. Their advanced water- saving technology can also help work towards achieving net zero, as well as potentially saving hundreds of thousands of pounds for an NHS Trust over a ten- year period. On a day-to-day practical level, double-pass reverse osmosis
January 2022 Health Estate Journal 65
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