The company is active in countless research programmes at a national and international level, participating in important Spanish programmes PROFIT and CENIT, as well as many other European projects.

• Technologies for Offshore Wind Farms in deep water (EOLIA)

  EOLIA (Technologies for offshore wind farms in deep waters) is a CENIT project focused on developing new desalination concepts in which renewable energies play a fundamental role, as do minimising the use of chemical reagents and energy consumption without environmental impact.

• Prevention of fouling and new pre-treatments in desalinisation projects using Reverse Osmosis

  Fouling, whether by inorganic or organic and biological compounds, is an Achilles’ heel in the membrane process used for desalination, whether in pre-treatments using ultra or microfiltration membranes or during the reverse osmosis process itself. With the aim of improving this process the project is directed towards developing new analytical and monitoring techniques for the prevention of fouling and new pre-treatments in the reverse osmosis desalination process, resulting in improved pre-treatments according to water type, and reduced operating costs of desalinisation plants. In addition, studies are being carried out on the inclusion of new membrane processes for use as process pre-treatments.

• Increased efforts on the developmet, innovation, optimisation and design of advanced greenhouses (MEDIODIA)

  The MEDIODIA project (Increased Efforts for the Development, Innovation, Optimisation and Design of Advanced Greenhouses) deals with centralising the supply of recyclable water to completely automated groups of greenhouses.

  In this respect, it is working on innovative concepts of reuse, in which membrane technology plays a fundamental role, together with new advanced processes of oxidation and zero waste.

• Pilot Plants

  ACCIONA Agua has different pilot plants for developing the different research projects. The Tordera plant (Barcelona), San Pedro del Pinatar plant (Alicante, Spain) or Monterey plant (California) are worthy of mention amongst them. Different advanced pre-treatment alternatives are being studied there for the desalination of seawater using ultra and micro-filtration membranes and different reverse osmosis membranes are being assessed as regards their performance in water producing, high conversion studies, boron removal and minimising energy costs. Different advanced disinfection systems are also being studied.

  We also have different pilot facilities for studying the application of membrane technology in treatment and re-use. In this sphere, the Almuñecar plant (Granada, Spain), Bakio plant (Vizcaya, Spain) or South-east plant (Gran Canaria, Spain) are leaders and membrane biological reactor technology (MRB) is being studied in them as are treatment and advanced oxidation processes and removal of persistent organic compounds such as endocrine disruptors.

  As a result of the research work undertaken, more than 14 patents have been registered, relating to the technologies of desalination, membrane biological reactors and re-use.

• Application of membrane technology for recycling waste water and eliminating emerging contaminants

  With respect to waste water treatment and recycling processes, projects such as the application of membrane technologies for recycling waste water and eliminating emerging contaminants have lead to research into the integration of Membrane Biological Reactors (MBR) with nano-filtration and reverse osmosis systems (as well as the destruction and elimination of new emerging contaminants, such as endocrine disrupters), in order to obtain water that complies with strict recycling legislation.

  In more conventional waste water treatments, the elimination of nutrients and improving the quality of treated water has led to work on the Elimination of nitrogen via nitrites in flowback water in waste water treatment plants, and develops new process conditions to facilitate this.

• Tordera Pilot Plant

  

  The pilot plant in La Tordera was designed within the framework of the CDTI subsidies with the aim of studying different pre-treatments for sea water and evaluating the different reverse osmosis membranes for performance in the treatment of water and elimination of Boron, as well as studying the impact of such membranes in energy costs.

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