Water wisdom

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Better known as one of the world’s most generous philanthropists, Koch Industries joint owner David H Koch has forged a strong link with the water industry

It’s not often that Utilities Middle East finds itself jostling for space on a meeting schedule that includes former US President George Bush and Dubai ruler HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, but then David H Koch is no ordinary interviewee.

As the joint owner and executive vice president of Koch Industries – one of the largest privately held companies in the US - Koch has interests in a number of verticals, not least the oil and gas and petrochemicals sectors, but it is soon obvious that the water industry is where his heart lies.

Koch developed his keen interest in membranes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and after joining Koch Industries in 1970, took over as president of technology outfit Abcor, which eventually changed its name to Koch Membrane Systems (KMS) in 1981. It was this breadth of experience that led the International Desalination Association (IDA) to invite Koch to be the keynote speaker at last month’s World Congress, held in Dubai. In front of a cast of luminaries, which included a number of the GCC’s electricity and water ministers, the KMS president was unrestrained in his praise for the desalination sector and its importance with regard to future global stability.

In person, David Koch cuts an imposing figure, but his enthusiasm for the sector and affability are somewhat infectious. And when the interview turns to the new products being rolled out by his company in the water market, he seems clearly in his element.

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On the new technologies front, Koch is keen to stress the merits of KMS’ newly re-engineered large-diameter seawater membrane, which was ably demonstrated with the presence of an 18-inch MegaMagnum element that took pride of place at the firm’s stand during IDA week.

“It’s a perfect example of the economies of scale, and large elements and larger housing in principle should cost less on a square-foot basis,” he explains. “I think that when we start getting large orders and volumes through, we can make these large elements a lower cost on the square-foot basis than the smaller elements. We’ve built a highly automated membrane manufacturing line, and we can push a lot of volume through it.”

Another benefit, says Koch, is that the housing weighs a third less than an equivalent number of 8-inch seawater housings at the same rated operating pressure. Furthermore, KMS is working on a configuration that will allow the company to assemble the housings together, which could reduce costs even further. “Depending on how the old 8-inch system was configured, you’re looking at savings of between 15-25%,” says Koch. “If you’re talking about a system that costs around US$30-50 million, that’s serious money.”

In addition, the use of large elements has the potential to lower facility footprints by as much as half, a point that is useful not only from a cost point of view, but also where systems are largely constrained by space, such as in urban areas, marine vessels or oil platforms. “I think that in order to be really successful in the large-element business, you have to offer the whole system; you can’t just sell the elements to the client and tell them to incorporate the products into their next project,” Koch explains. “Everything has to be integrated in a very systemic way.”

It’s no secret that demand for water in the Middle East is skyrocketing and the demands for the kind of systems that KMS manufactures are also rising steadily. The challenge is therefore on to look for different ways to improve existing technology, particularly as sustainability starts to play a more important role. Using less energy is clearly going to be a core requirement. So what technologies has KMS been examining?

“We’ve been doing analysis on a two-pass system; if you vary the performance of the seawater membrane, you can substantially reduce the pressure of the feedwater going to the first pass,” Koch indicates. “You then take the permeate that has a higher concentration of salt and feed it to a brackish water system. Depending on how you configure that, you can reduce the operating energy and, as a result, the cost.”

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