From Municipal Shortages to Sustainable Industrial Supply

The desalination water treatment project installed by Fluence South America at the Arcelor Mittal Tubarão facility has the ability to produce 3.1 MGD (12,000 m³/day) of treated water.

Background

Arcelor Mittal is a global manufacturer of iron and steel products with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg. The Arcelor Mittal – Brazil division manufactures plate, bar and rod steel products across facilities in Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, and Espírito Santo, Brazil. Operating more than 29 manufacturing plants across Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica and Venezuela, Arcelor Mittal is a major provider of steel products to South America and abroad.

Challenges

The main problem at the Tubarão facility, located in the city of Vitoria, Brazil is the limited availability of water from the local municipality. As the region suffers from increased water demand and drought has reduced the supply in local reservoirs, restrictions on water use by industries are becoming more prevalent. It is these concerns that led Arcelor Mittal to consider alternative sources of water to supply the Tubarao facility and they decided to install a desalination water treatment plant.

Process Description

The desalination water treatment project installed by Fluence South America at the Arcelor Mittal Tubarão facility has the ability to produce 3.1 MGD (12,000 m³/day) of treated water.

The treatment process includes pumping raw seawater into the plant and removing large, suspended solids using self-cleaning disk filters. The filtered water is then filtered using seven parallel trains of ultrafiltration (UF) membranes that reduce suspended solids to very low levels. To further reduce the salinity of the seawater to very low dissolved solids content, the filtered water is treated using five parallel two-pass reverse osmosis trains. The installed system is able to meet or exceed the water quality provided by the adjacent existing water treatment system fed with municipal water. Additionally, the reverse osmosis systems are equipped with energy recovery devices that utilize the high pressure concentrate stream to reduce electrical demand. As a water savings measure, the plant recycles the concentrate from the second pass of the reverse osmosis system to reduce raw water demand.

The treatment plant design with multiple UF and RO trains offers the facility significant flexibility and redundancy to meet varying treated water demands while also considering equipment maintenance needs.

Results

The Arcelor Mittal Tubarão desalination water treatment plant has demonstrated, since its commissioning in 2021, that the desalination of seawater is a sustainable and acceptable alternative to meeting industrial facility water demands. The plant benefits the local population by reducing the demand for potable water from the municipal supply. By operating its own desalination plant, the facility is also more resilient than relying on municipally provided water alone.

The innovative and sustainable designs led to the project being recognized as an "Innovative Project" at the World Congress of the Association International of Desalination (GOING) of 2019, and as the “Best Desalination Project” by the ALADYR Awards.

Ensure your industrial water supply is secure, even in drought-stricken regions. Contact our water experts to learn how Fluence's desalination solutions meet the unique needs of your industry.