Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo) announced that it will start demonstrating a sewage reuse system employing its water treatment membranes in Chennai, India.
The nation’s swift urbanization has caused water demand to surge, particularly in large cities. Another challenge is that drought has beset around half of India. Toray estimates a water supply shortfall of 30% to 40%. Transporting water from other regions is expensive. The authorities properly treat only around 30% of sewage, discharging most of it directly into rivers and other bodies of water, exacerbating water pollution.
It is against that backdrop that in April 2021 the Japan International Cooperation Agency chose a Toray proposal to demonstrate and commercialize energy-saving sewage reuse systems in India that purify water with water-treatment membranes. The selection was for that agency’s SDGs Business Verification Survey with the Private Sector for Energy Saving Membrane System for Sewage Reclamation in India”. August 2022 saw the company open the Toray India Water Research Center at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras Research Park. That institute is a hub for collaboration between academia and industry. The center conducts joint research with the institute into using water-treatment membranes for sewage reuse technologies. It also embarked on building a sewage reuse demonstration plant that recently became operational.
Toray’s system uses two approaches to treat sewage. The first combines biological treatment with ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membranes. The second brings together membrane bioreactor and reverse osmosis membranes. Water filtered by ultrafiltration membranes and membrane bioreactor is scarce of organic matter, particles, and microorganisms in sewage, and can be discharged into lakes and other bodies of water for indirect reuse as drinking water. Reverse osmosis membranes can also remove salts, heavy metals, arsenic, fluorine, and other contaminants to further enhanced reclaimed water.
In recent years, Toray has developed and launched a range of energy-saving products employing reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration membranes and membrane bioreactor modules. It has engineered these offerings to consume 30% less power than conventional Toray-made counterparts. The company estimates that electricity rates have doubled in India over the past decade, making its energy-efficient system even more attractive in that market.
The authorities in Chennai and Mumbai plan to reuse sewage with membranes from 2027 onwards. By demonstrating and promoting its system, Toray will contribute to greater sewage reuse in major Indian cities and help the nation address severe water shortages.
Providing access to clean water is pivotal to The Toray Group Sustainability Vision, representing a roadmap to the World as Envisioned by Toray Group in 2050 and embodying Toray Vision 2030, through which the Group seeks to achieve sound, sustainable growth. In keeping with its commitment to innovating ideas, technologies, and products that deliver new value, Toray will help resolve the world’s water problems and materialize a circular economy by developing water treatment membrane systems.