Greentech Lead America: Pentair Residential Filtration, a
subsidiary of Pentair, a provider of water treatment solutions, will launch its
electronic water purification system to the North American water industry at
the WQA Aquatech Show.
Products using the Pentair and Voltea technologies hybrid
DI system are expected to become available in mid-2012.
The company claims that the electronic water purification
system is built around a hybrid deionization (hybrid DI) process, using Pentair
and Voltea technologies to combine the benefits of reverse osmosis (RO)
filtration with those of a water softener – without requiring salt as a
regenerant.
In partnership with the Dutch firm Voltea, Pentair
developed the new technology. Voltea has licensed the technology to Pentair in
residential and light commercial applications for point-of-entry products.
The new technology uses capacitive electrodes to remove
hardness and TDS from water without employing salt. The core of the system is
Voltea’s patented stack configuration of electrodes combined with ion-selective
membranes.
Pentair will use the new system in products for light
commercial applications such as retail operations, car washes and laboratories.
The technology will also be used in products for residential customers through
an agreement with Aquion, Inc.’s RainSoft brand.
“Like a reverse osmosis system, this new product
will produce safe, softer, bottled-quality water throughout an entire facility
– but with 90 percent less waste water. Plus, since it doesn’t use salt, there
is no net increase in discharged total dissolved solids,” said Sam Karge,
global vice-president of marketing for Pentair Residential Filtration.
The technology assesses the inlet and treated water
quality, controls the power supplied to the stack, and adjusts operating cycles
and system flows to continuously optimize performance. The controller includes
self-diagnostics and auto-clean cycles. It also features a full-color touch
screen user interface with animated User displays that are intuitive for the
everyday user/homeowner and interactive Technical screens for system
maintenance providers.
With 2011 revenues of $3.5 billion, Pentair employs over
15,000 people worldwide.