Grey Water Recycling

Aqualoop

AQUALOOP is the culmination of a number of years research and development by INTEWA GmbH into the most effective way of treating grey water of varying degrees of contamination to a level that the water is clean enough to be stored and safely reused.

AQUALOOP is a modular system comprising a three stage treatment process capable of treating varying levels of contamination at varying levels of daily volumes – from 300 litres to 60000 litres per day.

AQUALOOP’s design and operation is regarded as so ground-breaking that its further development has been co-funded by the European Commission’s Eco-Innovation initiative.

Our GW300 (the residential system) is designed for residential homes for up to 6 people, with a daily greywater production (bath, showers and basins) of around 300 litres.

Tank 1 (bioreactor) contains the pre-filter, biological growth media, areation and an ultra-fine filtration membrane(s).

Daily household greywater volumes are treated within 24 hours and transferred into Tank 2 (clear water tank) for safe, odor-free storage and re-use.

AQUALOOP treated grey water fulfills the quality criteria of the European Bathing Water regulations. This is a standard regulating European outdoor water resources such as lakes, dams, rivers & public swimming areas. The water must be free from 99.9% of viruses and bacteria and other biological contaminants that may harm humans.

We DO NOT recommend that this water be used for POTABLE use (without further treatment protocols) but it can be SAFELY stored and used back inside the house for toilet flushing, general claeing and laundry washing. It can also be safely utilised  for high pressure irrigation systems, pool top-up, car washing etc.

Aqualoop systems can be scaled to treat up to 100,000 litres (100m³) per day.

System components & basic concept

Bioreactor & Clear Water Tanks

o keep cost and environmental impact to a minimum, tAqualoop 300 utilises locally manufactured bioreactor & clear water tanks 

For processing volumes of greywater larger than 300l/day larger locally sourced tanks aalso keep system costs down. All Aqualoop components are easily integrated into these larger tanks which are sized accoding to the daily requirement.

Pre-Filter

Aqualoop pre-filtering ensures larger solids, such as hair, are removed from the greywater as a first step. The Purain filter features a self-cleaning basket which checked and cleaned once every 2-3 months.

Growth Media

Hundreds of small plastic shapes, known as “growth media”, are installed into the biorector. Just as in nautre the process relies on ‘good’ bacteria to remove contaminants from water.  Good bacteria flourish quickly on the growth media and within 4 weeks of system start-up the media turn brown indicating a well established bio-film.

Within 12 hours, these ‘good’ bacteria consume the ‘bad’ bacteria and nutrients from the days greywater input. As simple as they are the growth media represent a very important part of the greywater biological degradation treatment process.

Membrane Station, System Controller & Blower

The Aqualoop membrane station is installed into the bioreactor tank. It is designed to hold up to six membranes and comprises an intergral suction pump, back-flush pump, back-flush tank and blower connection. Multiple membrane stations can be used in parallel for even higher water treatment capacities.

A fully automated system controller runs the system operating membrane backflushes, monitoring pumps and the blower.

The blower simultaneously fulfils the jobs of automated membrane cleaning and the supply of air to aid ‘good’ bacterial growth within the bioreactor.

Ultra-fine filtration membranes

Aqualoop patented ultra-fine filtration membranes (MBR) are the core of the water treatment process and comprise special hollow fibres (at 0,02 μm) which are designed to effectively filter over 99.9% of bacteria and viruses.

Aqualoop’s modular design supports the full functioning of the membranes ensuring regular automated back-flushing and aeration of the hollow fibres. This allows for a long service membrane life of up to 10 years* with only minimal maintenance (* based on treating greywater of 200mg/l BOD and may be longer when used to treat less contaminated water).

Aqualoop can improve the treated water to exceed European Bathing Regulations (safe swimming quality of lakes, rivers, swimming pools in Europe) quality without the need for chemical additives such as chlorine or ozone.

System service maintenance intervals vary based on the level of source water contamination. Greywater system service intervals are recommended every 6 months.

Larger systems are now fitted with automated membrane cleaning equipment, which slows the fouling of the membrane fibres, increasing the flow rate and making the systems more efficient.

Aqualoop Tested Water Quality

AQUALOOP complies with:

• BS 8525-1:2010, UK
• BS 8525-2:2011 British Standard for greywater treatment
• NSF/ANSI 350 US Standard for Commercial greywater treatment
• WHO / EU Bathing Water Directive
• NSW Health Department, Australia 2005
• H201 for grey water systems
• DIN 19650 quality requirements for irrigation water

NB: In order to precisely characterise the level of source water contamination, a water sample needs to be tested.