Project launch KonTriSol

The BMBF project KonTriSol was launched with a kick-off meeting. Over the next three years, ten project partners will develop solutions to the technical, legal and economic obstacles to the use of nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (UO) processes in drinking water treatment.

The purpose of the NF and UO membrane processes in drinking water treatment is, among other things, the reduction of hardness components, inorganic water constituents, natural organic substances or the removal of anthropogenic trace substances. At present, the only option for disposing of the resulting concentrates is to discharge them into sewers or bodies of water. In recent years, this discharge has been viewed increasingly critically by the competent licensing authorities, especially if the concentrates contain high concentrations of anthropogenic trace substances foreign to nature, including the added treatment substances, or nutrient salts.

The aim of the KonTriSol project is to remove the existing technical and licensing hurdles for the use of NF/UO technology in drinking water treatment, to provide practicable and tested technical solutions and to support the evaluation and selection of technologies and action alternatives through holistic evaluation concepts. The aim is to actively support the application, transfer and exportability of these solutions to other fields of application and markets outside Germany. This is to be realised with the help of the following fields of investigation: Process engineering alternatives to NF/UO processes, antiscalants - evaluation and alternatives, treatment of concentrates/potential for removal of environmental contaminants, ecotoxicological and human toxicological evaluation, legal and economic barriers, suitable solution strategies and holistic evaluation of action alternatives and transfer strategies to selected countries.

The project is coordinated by the IWW Centre for Water and funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the DVGW Deutscher Verein des Gas und Wasserfaches e.V. - Technisch-wissenschaftlicher Verein.