Water technologies

Its laboratories stand as a benchmark in the membrane technology sector, and due to this, the Center has the most modern analytical techniques and equipment.

The lines of research which are being conducted at the Technological Center of Barcelona are:

• Deep-sea desalination
• Efficiency and energy consumption savings
• "Agua nueva©": New uses for reused water.

Deep-sea desalination

ACCIONA is presenting a breakthrough solution in this field: deep-sea desalination. This alternative provides substantial advantages, such as the excellent quality of the water, a simple pretreatment and less reagent consumption, less power to work conversion (lower specific energy consumption), unmanned operation (by remote control, like the wind turbines) and a better use of brine for fixing CO2 and generating biomass. Within the EOLIA project, ACCIONA is studying, through ACCIONA Agua, the feasibility of setting up desalination plants or deep-sea water desalination, with wind power electric supplies and with the objective of reducing operating costs by 20%.

Efficiency and energy consumption savings

ACCIONA Agua is making major efforts in this field by way of the designs of the configuration and arrangement of the membranes and the harnessing of the residual pressures in the form of energy. This innovative new system is currently in the process of being patented.

At the same time, for the purpose of reducing CO2 emissions, research is being done on the possibility of powering the processes directly with renewable energies.

"Agua nueva©": New uses for reused water

ACCIONA is working on the development of a new technology for the biological treatment of wastewater which will make it possible for wastewater to be reused for watering and other used: the Membrane Bioreaction (MBR). The latest research on the development of a new generation of ultra-filtering and microfiltering membranes have given rise to a new concept providing advantages over conventional processes: more highly effective, lower costs and better quality of the water treated in comparison to the conventional processed.

With advancements such as these, ACCIONA is providing cutting-edge technological solutions for remedying our society's water problem.

As a result of this research, ACCIONA has registered the concept "New Water": that which results from having been treated with the Company's specific systems and technology, as a proprietary brand name.