The PRISTINE project builds on the previous feasibility studies and laboratory development work by Keronite & atg UV who have developed cutting edge, chemical-free, advanced-oxidation water treatment technology with the potential to treat ultra-pure water for a number of end use applications. The PRISTINE project will develop a cost-effective new approach to the manufacturing of photocatalytic reactor system based on a modular design philosophy and will demonstrate the system for safe, reliable & cost-effective ultra-pure water treatment. In so doing the consortium will maximise the chances that the manufacture of these technologies will be undertaken within the UK. The PRISTINE project is a business-led consortium, with the ultra pure water treatment acting as the initial route to market for the technology (through atg UV’s existing links within the UPW market).

By casting rather than fabricating our stainless steel UV reactor chambers we will achieve reduced costs, shorter lead times, better workshop utilisation and energy saving for the end user. This will enable us to attract new sales both in the UK and overseas.

The subsea factory concept, being developed by the oil and gas sector's need to develop new cost effective ways of extracting oil and gas reserves. Hence their decision to invest heavily in the development of subsea equipment for enhanced oil recovery.However as many of the subsea factories will be located in deeper waters (up to 3km) and harsher environments it is imperative that equipment can function remotely with little or no maintenance requirements so as to minimise operation and maintenance costs. For example, water-injection systems require filtration using expensive membranes with limited lifetimes (require changing after 6-12 mths at a significant cost per site) and disinfection using biocides which require storage, pumping and injection into the system. Therefore there is a real demand for technological solutions which can help to minimise lifecycle cost (capex and opex) and maintain production up-time. UV-SEA focusses on developing a solution to increase the lifetime of filtration membranes to meet the well site operators requirements and in so doing will significantly reduce capex/opex and maintenance. This will be achieved through the development of a highly disruptive water treatment technology for subsea injection. This has the potential to fundamentally change the industry, massively reducing cost and increasing safety and allowing access to current resources that are currently unviable due to technical reasons such as reservoir depth.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

To date, we have an extensive range of energy hungry medium pressure lamp based products but only one single 200watt energy efficient Amalgam lamp model enclosed in a stainless steel chamber that has a very basic mechanical and electrical design. Others use multiple 300watt lamps immersed in support racks in open channels that move effluent in a canal like structure. The aim of this project is to shape the results of previous research (including our patent rights from CRAFT project) into a design for a new 800watt multi lamp Amalgam product involving significant technological advances in terms of lamp, hydraulic flow and control system aspects. In the project we would carry out development work including CFD modelling various combinations of UV light geometry, understand the necessary relevant international product approvals, source and test multiple lamp 800 watt power supplies, develop chamber designs that are mechanically robustly designed using stress predicffon software (that we currently do not have), develop a new touch screen controller to display and control multipl0 lamps (the current display is only 2 lines), and develop a control algorithm that will optimise applied lamp power using real time inputs such as flow, fluid transmittance and lamp intensity, with the overall objective of delivering the required UV dose with the lowest possible connected power. Our target would be to design a new product that uses 60% less power than our current technology. The overall deliverable of the project would be to develop and produce a pre-production prototype that would form the basis of a new product range to serve the rapidly expanding market to disinfect reclaimed effluent for a variety of uses, at a fraction of the power currently needed, thus materially effecting the carbon footprint of this technology.