Desalination plants at Skikda and Beni Saf

[Al-khiyal]

Oceanside, CA— Algeria has never had enough water for its people. Since the Berbers first came here in 10,000 BC, provisioning daily life with clean water has been a constant struggle for this North African coastal country; centuries of drought and mismanagement have depleted ground water supplies and dam reserves to sub-critical levels. Today, many cities – including Algiers, have water systems that work only a handful of days out of each week. The World Health Organization considers a country “water stressed” at below an annual availability of 1,700 cubic meters of clean water per person – without immediate change, Algeria is predicted to drop to levels of less than 1,000 cubic meters by 2025. Desalination is a significant part of Algeria’s water solution – and Nitto Denko/Hydranautics is at the forefront of that effort, with over 26,250 SWC5 reverse osmosis desalination membrane elements coming online in Algerian desalination plants by 2008.

The Geida Consortium, made of up of Befesa CTA, ACS Cobra-Tedagua and Sadyt, chose Hydranautics’ SWC5 for new desalination plants at Skikda and Beni Safe – both are being built at strategic locations along Algeria’s Mediterranean coast. Together, these plants will produce over 300,000 m3/d (79 MGD) of potable water, a significant and life-improving reduction of Algeria’s potable water deficit – and a new chapter in the history of this thirsty nation.

The seawater composite SWC5 is designed to provide higher salt rejection at a higher rate of flow with increased boron rejection – 92%. The SWC5 is a cost saving solution for both municipal and industrial applications providing 30 m3/d (9,000 gpd) at 99.8% nominal salt rejection at low operating pressures.

Hydranautics’ SWC5 is part of a comprehensive line of desalination membranes that are used worldwide and produce an installed capacity of over 264 MGD (1,000,000 m3/day) with unparalleled operational success. This experience, combined with the best membrane performance in the industry, demonstrates Hydranautics’ position as the technology leader and as the preferred qualified supplier for seawater projects worldwide.

Over 26,000 of Hydranautics SWC5 elements selected for 2 Algerian projects

[Al-khiyal]

Algeria, the North African country that has faced water supply problems dating back to 10,000 B.C., will be getting some relief with the implementation of two Hydranautics' SWC5 desalination plants that together will produce over 79 million gallons of water per day, according to a January 23 Hydranautics press release.

The country, declared "water stressed" by the World Health Organization, now offers less than 1,700 cubic meters of clean water per year per person, a figure predicted to drop to less than 1,000 cubic meters by 2025, the press release said.

By 2008 Hydranautics will bring over 26,250 reverse osmosis desalination membrane elements online at the two plants, to be built on the Mediterranean coast in Skikda and Beni Safe, according to the press release...

Desalination for 'water-stressed' Algeria

[Al-khiyal]

09 Mar 2007 - Nitto Denko Corporation and its fully owned U.S. subsidiary Hydranautics ("ND/HY" collectively) have landed a contract to supply their "SWC5" high-performance reverse osmosis (RO) filtration membrane elements for a seawater desalination plant to be constructed on the Mediterranean coast in Algeria, north Africa, a country suffering from chronic water shortage. The contracted volume of the elements to be supplied to this Algerian plant is of a largest-scale for a single project, the companies say.

With a contract award also being expected for another Algerian desalination plant project, the total monetary amount of the Algerian contracts is expected to far exceed JPY 2 billion ($16.7 million), the ND/HY group says. Moreover, having won supply contracts for desalination projects also in Spain and Mexico, ND/HY will achieve the position of the world's largest-scale supplier of seawater desalination RO membranes, they point out.

Nitto Denko group's reverse osmosis membrane
adopted for large-scale seawater desalination plant projects