New way to turn UAE waste water into something useful

Dubai: Sewage and water treatment facilities that offer a cheaper alternative to desalination have arrived in the UAE with several plants planned around the country.

Membrane bio-reactor (MBR) plants go a step further than traditional sewage treatment plants by filtering the treated waste water and making it suitable to use for unrestricted irrigation and district cooling plants.

It is purified almost to the level of potable water but is not suitable for drinking. An MBR plant can provide a sewage treatment option whilst producing water good enough to serve the needs of machinery and cooling facilities, said Mohammad Awad, director of business development for Concorde-Corodex.

The Abu Dhabi Sewage Services Company awarded a contract to Concorde-Corodex earlier this year to design, construct and commission an MBR plant for the largest planned labour accommodation facility in the UAE. The Construction Worker's Residential City will house 32,000 people.

The MBR plant will be the biggest in the UAE. Desalination plants use an enormous amount of energy and the water produced is of high quality but often wasted on irrigation and landscaping, said Awad.

Traditional sewage treatment plants produce treated waste water that can only be used for restricted landscaping, he said.

Eco-friendly

"MBR is 99 per cent free of suspended solids due to a more complicated filtering process," said Awad.

He believes that MBR can reduce national dependency on desalinated water.

Mohammad Abdul Aziz Al Awadi, director of the Al Aweer sewage treatment plant, said MBR technology is more ecologically friendly with a lower carbon footprint, but is more expensive.