We're committed to extending the reach of water and wastewater treatment through technological advances

At Fluence, we're working to create a better world through ongoing technological innovation. We're embracing sustainability, economy, and flexibility in our quest to provide clean water wherever it's needed around the world. We strive for excellence through innovation and technological leadership, and our intellectual property is an important aspect of that: Our patents extend across a wide range of treatment equipment and processes.

We believe that the emerging concept of distributed, or decentralized, water management is the key to water sustainability, providing the right water treatment at the point of use, at the right scale -- and at the right price. Recent developments in treatment, automation, remote control, and communication technologies are allowing us to break new ground with systems that lower infrastructure and operating costs and maximize flexibility. Our Smart Packaged water and wastewater treatment solutions take advantage of these innovations to make treatment even more viable.

We're also working to standardize essential features of wastewater treatment to allow for consistent specification of energy consumption and efficiency.

Rigorous Research and Testing

Fluence's R&D center in Israel is the biggest MABR research facility in the world, including pilots and experiments for existing and future product lines. The research center includes a dedicated laboratory equipped with all the sampling equipment necessary to test water and wastewater for BOD, COD, TSS, VSS, TN, TKN, TP, NH₄+, NO₃, NO₂, conductivity, pH, dO₂, ORP, and more. Several small-scale pilot plants running at the research center continually test MABR treatment under a range of streams and loads, providing information for small to larger-scale commercial sites.

Some of these pilots have included five in China in 2016, one in the CENTA research center in Spain, and one in 2018 at Stanford University's Codiga Resource Recovery Center in California, which tested MABR systems with very concentrated wastewater streams. The plants reduced the loads to very strict effluent criteria, meeting and exceeding regulations in China and in California, which has some of the most stringent in the United States.

Fluence is currently conducting several collaborative research programs:

• Investigating water reuse in agriculture under the Horizon 2020 PRIMA program, as part of the DSWAP consortium
• Researching side-stream treatment with a U.S. company under a binational U.S.-Israel grant
• Improving the efficiency of energy recovery as part of a U.S.-Israel consortium dealing with the water-energy nexus

We are constantly looking for interesting partnerships for development of new and improved treatment process technologies. Please contact [email protected] with any inquiries.

Revolutionary wastewater treatment technology optimizes nutrient removal while slashing energy requirements

In the field of biological wastewater treatment, Fluence has invested years of research and development into the innovative and energy-efficient membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR), which provides exceptional nutrient removal while minimizing energy use, making treatment possible even off the grid.

Fluence's MABR uses a proprietary, spirally wound membrane for maximum treatment surface area and optimization of several processes, including simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND).

After 7 years of researching and manufacturing MABR membranes, continual improvement remains at the top of our agenda. We have built research stations and are testing different types of materials, packaging forms and other membrane properties to optimize our product for the next generation of MABR.

For example, Fluence is operating a full-scale pilot plant to test the technology's performance in cold climates, as well as developing a smart control system that will allow for SND in MABR-free basins, producing superior effluent quality with minimum energy usage.

One of the first MABR pilot modules we created more than six years ago has been running nonstop ever since under a variety of conditions to test its durability. We have dried it, flooded it, and fed it a wide variety of wastewater streams, and it has continued to do its job!

This revolutionary technology is available in stand-alone plants, as well as in towers that can be used to retrofit existing wastewater treatment plants.

Il team Ricerca & Sviluppo di Fluence Italia vanta una comprovata esperienza nello sviluppo di soluzioni all’avanguardia per la valorizzazione energetica dei rifiuti. Grazie a tecnologie innovative, convertiamo i residui di processo in energia pulita e riutilizzabile, riducendo l’impatto ambientale.

Da oltre 20 anni, il team di ricerca e sviluppo di Fluence Italy opera con un forte focus sulle tecnologie di waste to energy, in particolare sulla digestione anaerobica applicata al trattamento delle acque reflue. Abbiamo disponibilità di due impianti anaerobici a fango granulare di tipo semi-industriali, di due digestori CSTR su scala di laboratorio, Fluence Italy è in grado di valutare in modo approfondito i vari processi sopracitati. I principali ambiti di eccellenza e risultati del lavoro del team:

• Ricerca sui digestori a completamente miscelati (CSTR- Continuos Stirred Tank Reactor) ha permesso all’azienda di affermarsi come leader in Italia nella digestione anaerobica di acque reflue e sottoprodotti industriali, estendendone l’applicazione anche a settori complessi e non convenzionali, come l’industria farmaceutica e trattamento di rifiuti da auto-spurgo.
• Ottimizzazione del digestato rapido a fanghi granulari mediante il processo EGSB (expanded granular sludge bed, evoluzione del più noto UASB), ulteriormente perfezionato con il reattore proprietario a ricircolo forzato esterno (EFC-External Forced Circulation) che consente il trattamento efficiente di effluenti molto diluiti da birrifici, cartiere e industrie dolciarie.
• Digestione anaerobica termofila. Una soluzione che prevede il funzionamento degli impianti a temperature elevate, di quelle normalmente previste per la digestione mesofila (55 °C anziché 36 – 40 °C), consentendo un incremento della produzione di biogas a parità di ingombro impiantistico. Questa applicazione risulta particolarmente efficace nel settore lattiero-caseario.
• Collaborazione con l’Università di Padova sull’applicazione in ambito industriale del processo di ossidazione anaerobica dello ione ammonio (Anammox). Un trattamento di finitura del digestato ad alto contenuto di azoto che permette di ridurre i consumi energetici e il fabbisogno di fonti di carbonio esterne per la rimozione dei composti nitrici.

Processi di idrolisi avanzata. Finalizzata alla riduzione del volume dei fanghi digeriti e all’incremento della produzione specifica di biogas.

Containerized Desalination

Specially engineered processes yield high-capacity seawater desalination in standardized, compact units

Contaminati emergenti

Rimozione di microplastiche e altri inquinanti difficili da trattare per ottenere ad alta purezza per l’industria.