A new Niagara Bottling facility is being built as part of an agreement reached between Niagara and New Logic Research. The two companies’ agreement will see the creation of a new breed in water filtering technology, the Vibratory Shear-Enhanced Process (VSEP) brine minimization system.
Designed to pick up where reverse osmosis (RO) systems leave off, VSEP systems introduce an alternative method for dealing with fouling, which clogs the filtering process.
Cross-flow filtration systems often suffer from fouling as solids build up in the filter’s boundary layer. This layer is located just above filtering membranes where the solids are caught.
Liquids are allowed to pass through small pores in the membrane, but as solids build up the pores become blocked.
Cross-flow systems address this issue by creating a shear wave on contact with the membrane, pumping liquids through the system at high velocities. This technique is limited to low-viscosity fluids like water and has only proven to lead to premature fouling.
New Logic’s VSEP system introduces an alternative for producing more intense shear waves to prevent blockage in filters without sacrificing performance.
In the VSEP system liquids flow at a meandering pace and the membrane itself vibrates. The vibrations of the membrane are so intense that the shear waves produced bounce the solids back. VSEP’s open channel flow-path prevents any buildup.
The membranes pores are exposed for a maximum throughput three to 10 times more than the cross-flow technique.
With VSEP, Niagara and New Logic are hoping to increase water efficiency over the 99 percent mark plant-wide.
"VSEP is essentially a zero-wastewater purification system that will allow us to bottle 99 percent plus of the water we draw,” said Niagara CEO Andy Peykoff II. “This system will make our new facility the most water-efficient purified water bottling plant in the U.S.”
The VSEP system will be built at New Logic's Emeryville, CA manufacturing facility. The completed system will be shipped in stages to Niagara's new facility. Full commissioning will commence later in 2015.
Learn more about New Logic’s VSEP brine minimization technology here.
All images courtesy New Logic Research